THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


BY-WAYS 


AND 


BIRD     NOTES 


BY 


MAURICE     THOMPSON 


AUTHOR  OF 


AT  LOVE'S  EXTREMES,"   "His  SECOND  CAMPAIGN,"  "SONGS 
OF  FAIR  WEATHER,"    "A  TALLAHASSEE 
GIRL,"  ETC. 


NEW    YORK 
JOHN    B.    ALDEN,    PUBLISHER 

1885 


Copyright,  1885, 

BY 

JOHN    B.    ALDEN 


TROW9 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY, 
NEW  YORK. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

IN  THE    HAUNTS    OF  THE   MOCKING- 
BIRD   5 

A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY 23 

TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS  si 40 

TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS :  II 50 

TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS  :  III 59 

TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS  :  IV 66 

THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS 75 

BROWSING  AND  NIBBLING 95 

OUT-DOOR    INFLUENCES    IN    LITERA- 
TURE   105 

A  FORTNIGHT  IN  A  PALACE  OF  REEDS . .  1 18 

CUCKOO  NOTES 133 

SOME  MINOR  SONG-BIRDS 151 

BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS 164 


M368459 


BY-WAYS 


AND 


B  I  R  D-N  O  T  E  S  . 


IN  THE  HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING- 
BIRD. 

THE  mocking-bird  has  been  called  the 
American  nightingale,  with  a  view,  no  doubt, 
to  inflicting  a  compliment  involving  the  opera- 
tion, known  to  us  all,  of  damning  with  faint 
praise.  The  nightingale  presumably  is  not 
the  sufferer  by  the  comparison,  since  she  holds 
immemorial  title  to  preeminence  amongst  sing- 
ing-birds. The  story  of  Philomela,  however, 
as  first  told,  was  not  an  especially  pleasing 
one,  and  the  poets  made  no  great  use  of  it. 
Nowhere  in  Greek  or  Roman  literature,  so  far 
as  I  know,  is  there  any  genuine  lyric  apostro- 
phe to  the  nightingale  comparable  to  Sappho's 
fragment  To  the  Rose;  still  the  bird  has  a 
prestige  gathered  from  centuries  of  poetry  and 
upheld  by  the  master  romancers  of  the  world. 

To  compare  the  song  of  any  other  bird  with 
that  of  the  nightingale  is  like  instituting  a 
comparison  between  some  poet  of  to-day  and 
Shakespeare,  so  far  as  any  sympathy  with  the 
would-be  rival  is  concerned.  The  world  has 
long  ago  made  up  its  mind,  and  when  the 
world  once  does  that  there  is  an  end,  a  cul  de 


6  BY-WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

sac,  a  stopping-place,  of  all  argument  of  the 
question.  Indeed,  it  is  a  very  romantic  dis- 
tance that  separates  the  bird  from  most  of  us. 
Chaucer's  groves  and  Shakespeare's  woods 
shake  out  from  their  leaves  a  fragrance  that 
reaches  us  along  with  a  song  which  is  half  the 
bird's  and  half  the  poet's.  We  connect  the 
nightingale's  music  with  a  dream  of  chivalry, 
troubadours,  and  mediaeval  castles.  It  is  as 
dear  to  him  who  has  heard  it  only  in  the 
changes  rung  by  the  Persian,  French,  and 
English  bards  as  it  is  to  him  whose  chamber 
window  opens  on  a  choice  haunt  of  the  bird 
in  rural  England. 

I  might  dare  to  go  further  and  claim  that  I, 
who  have  never  heard  a  nightingale  sing,  can 
say  with  truth  that  its  music  is,  in  a  certain 
way,  as  familiar  to  me  as  the  sound  of  a  run- 
ning stream  or  the  sough  of  a  spring  breeze. 
I  often  find  myself  reluctantly  shaking  off 
something  like  a  recollection  of  having  some- 
where, in  some  dim  old  grove,  heard  the  voice 
that  Keats  imprisoned  in  his  matchless  ode. 
There  is  a  sort  of  aerial  perspective  in  the 
mere  name  of  the  nightingale ;  it  is  like  some 
of  those  classical  allusions  which  bring  into  a 
modern  essay  suggestions  with  an  Infinite  dis- 
tance in  them.  So  thoroughly  has  this  been 
felt  that  it  may  safely  be  said  that  the  nightin- 
gale has  been  more  frequently  mentioned  by 
our  American  writers,  good,  bad,  and  indiffer- 
ent, than  any  one  of  our  native  birds.  No 
doubt  it  ought  to  provoke  a  smile,  this  gushing 
about  a  music  one  has  never  heard ;  but,  like 
the  music  of  the  spheres  and  the  roar  of  the 
ocean,  the  nightingale's  voice  is  common 
property,  and  we  all  take  it  as  a  sort  of  hered- 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.        7 

itary  music,  descending  to  us  by  immemorial 
custom.  Its  notes  are  echoing  within  us,  and 
we  feel  their  authenticity  though  in  fact  we 
know  as  little  about  the  bird  as  chemists  do 
about  Geber.  How  shall  we  doubt  that  the 
bird  whose  song  inspired  Keats  to  write  that 
masterpiece  of  English  poetry  is  indeed  a 
wonderful  musician  ?  Shakespeare  and  rare 
Ben  Jonson  and  Burns  and  Scott  and  Shelley 
and  Byron  heard  this  same  song ;  it  was  just 
as  clear  and  sweet  as  it  is  now  when  Chaucer 
was  telling  his  rhymed  tales,  when  Robin 
Hood  was  in  the  greenwood,  even  when  the 
Romans  made  their  first  invasion. 

In  a  general  way,  we  do  not  think  of  the 
nightingale  having  a  nest  and  rearing  a  brood 
and  dying.  It  is  simply  the  incomparable 
nightingale,  philomela,  rossignol,  or  whatever 
the  name  may  be, — a  bird  that  has  been  sing- 
ing in  rose-gardens  and  orange-orchards  and 
English  woods  night  after  night  for  thousands 
of  years  without  a  rival.  Its  song  is  to  the 
imagination  of  all  of  us 

"L'hymne  flottant  des  nuits  d'ete." 

as  Lamartine  has  expressed  it.  So  it  can 
easily  be  understood  how  hard  a  struggle  our 
American  mocking-bird  is  going  to  have  before 
it  reaches  a  place  in  the  world's  esteem  beside 
the  nightingale.  Nor  is  it  my  purpose  to  do 
anything  with  a  special  view  to  aid  it  in  the 
struggle ;  but  I  have  studied  our  bird  in  all 
its  haunts  and  in  all  seasons,  with  a  view  to  a 
most  intimate  acquaintance  with  its  habits,  its 
song,  and  its  character. 

To  begin  with,  the  name  mocking-bird,  is  a 
heavy  load  for  any  bird  to  bear.  Unmusical 


8  BY-WA  YS  AND  BIRD-  NO  TES, 

as  it  is,  the  worst  feature  of  such  an  appella- 
tion is  the  idea  of  flippancy  and  ill-breeding 
that  it  conveys.  To  "mock"  is  to  imitate 
with  an  ill-natured  purpose,  to  jeer  at,  to  ridi- 
cule; it  was  for  mocking  that  bad  children 
were  made  food  for  bears.  Such  a  name 
carries  with  it  a  shadow  of  something  repel- 
lant,  and  no  poet  can  ever  rescue  it,  as  a 
name,  from  its  meaning  and  its  eight  harsh 
consonants.  It  would  indeed  require  some 
centuries  of  romantic  and  charming  associa- 
tions to  make  of  it  a  name  by  which  to  con- 
jure, as  in  the  case  of  the  nightingale.  The 
bird,  with  almost  any  other  name  than  mock- 
ing-bird, would  fare  much  better  at  the  hands 
of  artists  and  poets,  and  might  hope,  if  birds 
may  hope  at  all,  finally  to  gain  the  meed  of 
praise  it  so  richly  deserves. 

In  a  beautiful  little  valley  among  the  moun- 
tains of  North  Georgia  I  first  began  to  study 
the  mocking-bird  in  its  wild  state.  It  was  not 
a  very  common  bird  there,  just  rare  enough  to 
keep  one  keenly  interested  in  its  habits.  I 
had  great  trouble  in  finding  a  nest.  Many  a 
delightful  tramp  through  the  thorny  thickets 
and  wild  orchards  of  plum-trees  ended  in  noth- 
ing, before  my  eyes  discovered  the  loose  sticks 
and  matted  midribs  of  leaves  which  usually 
make  up  the  songster's  home.  The  haw-tree, 
several  varieties  of  which  grow  in  the  glades 
of  what  is  known  as  the  Cherokee  Region,  is  a 
favorite  nesting-place,  and  so  is  the  honey- 
locust  tree,  which  is  also  much  chosen  by  the 
shrike  or  butcher-bird.  There  is  so  strong  a 
resemblance  in  colors  and  size  between  this 
shrike  and  the  mocking-bird  that  one  is  often 
mistaken  for  the  other  by  careless  observers, 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.        9 

hence  in  some  neighborhoods,  I  have  found  a 
strong  prejudice  existing  against  the  mocking- 
bird on  account  of  the  fiendish  habits  of  the 
shrike. 

A  mountain  lad  once  led  me  over  a  con- 
siderable mountain  and  down  into  a  wild  dell 
to  show  me  a  nest  in  a  thorn  tree,  where  he 
was  sure  I  should  find  every  evidence  that  a 
mocking-bird  was  a  soulless  monster,  murder- 
ing little  pee-wee  fly-catchers  and  warblers, 
and  impaling  them  on  thorns  out  of  sheer 
wantonness.  I  felt  sure  it  was  a  shrike,  but 
the  boy  said  he  knew  better.  Didn't  he  know 
a  mocking-bird  when  he  saw  it?  He  had 
heard  it  sing  and  "  mock  "  all  the  birds  in  the 
thickets  around,  and  had  also  seen  it  doing  its 
brutal  work.  Boys  are  sometimes  very  close 
and  reliable  in  their  observations,  and  this  one 
was  an  inveterate  hunter,  and  so  stoutly  as- 
serted his  knowledge  that  I  was  induced  to 
test  his  accuracy  by  going  with  him  to  the 
place  he  called  Mocking-Bird  Hollow.  Of 
course  the  nest  was  that  of  a  shrike,  but  a 
number  of  mocking-birds  were  breeding  in  the 
immediate  vicinity,  hence  the  mistake. 

The  mocking-bird  does  not  appear  to  be  a 
strictly  migratory  bird,  its  range  being  much 
narrower  than  that  of  the  brown-thrush,  the 
cat-bird,  and  the  wood-thrush.  I  have  never 
been  able  to  find  it  a  regular  visitant  in  the 
West  north  of  Tennessee,  though  I  have  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  it  comes  at  times  much 
farther,  even  into  the  Ohio  valley.  In  the 
mountain  valleys  it  is  extremely  wary  and  shy, 
its  habits  approaching  very  close  to  those 
attributed  to  the  nightingale  of  England.  It 
chooses  lonely  and  almost  inaccessible  nest- 


io  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NOTES. 

ing  places,  and  will  not  sing  if  at  all  disturbed. 
Often,  while  I  have  been  lying  on  the  ground 
in  some  secluded  glade,  I  have  heard,  far  in 
the  night,  a  sudden  gush  of  melody  begun  by 
one  bird  and  echoed  by  another  and  another 
all  around  me,  filling  the  balmy  air  of  spring 
with  a  half-cheerful,  half-plaintive  medley. 
This  is  more  common  when  the  moon  shines, 
but  I  have  heard  it  when  the  night  was  black. 
At  several  points  near  the  coast  of  the 
Carolinas  I  have  found  the  mocking-bird  ap- 
parently a  resident,  and  yet,  so  far  South  as 
Savannah,  Georgia,  it  seems  to  shrink  from  the 
occasional  midwinter  rigors.  In  the  hills  near 
the  Alabama  River,  not  far  from  Montgomery, 
it  is  certainly  resident,  but  I  found  it  a  much 
shyer  bird  there  than  in  the  thickets  along  the 
bayous  of  Louisiana.  Early  in  the  winter  of 
1883  I  made  a  most  careful  search  for  the 
mocking-bird  in  Pensacola,  Florida,  and  its 
environs,  but  found  none.  I  was  told  that  the 
bird  would  appear  about  the  last  of  February. 
At  Marianna,  Florida,  and  along  the  line  of 
the  road  thence  to  the  Appalachicola  River,  I 
saw  it  frequently  in  midwinter.  On  the  Gulf 
Coast,  down  as  far  as  Punta  Rassa,  and  across 
the  peninsula  to  the  Indian  River  country,  in 
the  orange,  lemon,  and  citron  groves,  in  the 
bay  thickets,  and  even  in  the  sandy  pine 
woods,  I  noted  it  quite  frequently.  In  this 
semi-tropical  country  it  is  not  so  shy  and  so 
chary  of  its  song,  as  it  is  farther  north.  Near 
the  mouth  of  the  St.  Mark's  River,  as  I  lay  un- 
der a  small  tree,  a  mocking-bird  came  and  lit 
on  the  top  of  a  neighboring  bush,  and  sang  for 
me  its  rarest  and  most  wonderful  combination, 
called  by  the  negroes  the  "  dropping  song." 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.       11 

Whoever  has  closely  observed  the  bird  has 
noted  its  "  mounting  song,"  a  very  frequent 
performance,  wherein  the  songster  begins  on 
the  lowest  branch  of  a  tree  and  .appears  liter- 
ally to  mount  on  its  music,  from  bough  to 
bough,  until  the  highest  spray  of  the  top  is 
reached,  where  it  will  sit  for  many  minutes 
flinging  upon  the  air  an  ecstatic  stream  of 
almost  infinitely  varied  vocalization.  But  he 
who  has  never  heard  the  "  dropping  song " 
has  not  discovered  the  last  possibility  of  the 
mocking-bird's  voice.  I  have  never  found 
any  note  of  this  extremely  interesting  habit  of 
the  bird  by  any  ornithologist,  a  habit  which  is, 
I  suspect,  occasional,  and  connected  with  the 
most  tender  part  of  the  mating  season.  It  is, 
in  a  measure,  the  reverse  of  the  "mounting 
song,"  beginning  where  the  latter  leaves  off. 
I  have  heard  it  but  four  times,  when  I  was 
sure  of  it,  during  all  my  rambles  and  patient 
observations  in  the  chosen  haunts  of  the  bird  ; 
once  in  North  Georgia,  twice  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Tallahassee,  Florida,  and  once 
near  the  St.  Mark's  River,  as  above  men- 
tioned. I  have  at  several  other  times  heard 
the  song,  as  I  thought,  but  not  being  able  to 
see  the  bird,  or  clearly  distinguish  the  peculiar 
notes,  I  cannot  register  these  as  certainly  cor- 
rect. My  attention  was  first  called  to  this  in- 
teresting performance  by  an  aged  negro  man, 
who,  being  with  me  on  an  egg-hunting  expe- 
dition, cried  out  one  morning,  as  a  burst  of 
strangely  rhapsodic  music  rang  from  a  haw 
thicket  near  our  extemporized  camp,  "  Lis'n, 
mars,  lis'n,  dar,  he's  a  droppin',  he's  a-drop- 
pin',  sho's  yo'  bo'n!"  I  could  not  see  the 


12  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

bird,  and  before  I  could  get  my  attention 
rightly  fixed  upon  the  song  it  had  ended. 

Something  of  the  rare  aroma,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  curiously  modulated  trills  and  quavers 
lingered  in  my  memory,  however,  along  with 
Uncle  Jo's  graphic  description  of  the  bird's 
actions.  After  that  I  was  on  the  lookout  for 
an  opportunity  to  verify  the  negro's  state- 
ments. 

I  have  not  exactly  kept  the  date  of  my  first 
actual  observation,  but  it  was  late  in  April,  or 
very  early  in  May;  for  the  crab-apple  trees, 
growing  wild  in  the  Georgian  hills,  were  in 
full  bloom,  and  spring  had  come  to  stay.  I 
had  been  out  since  the  first  sparkle  of  day- 
light. The  sun  was  rising,  and  I  had  been 
standing  quite  still  for  some  minutes,  watch- 
ing a  mocking-bird  that  was  singing  in  a 
snatchy,  broken  way,  as  it  fluttered  about  in  a 
thick-topped  crab-apple  tree  thirty  yards  dis- 
tant from  me.  Suddenly  the  bird,  a  fine  speci- 
men, leaped  like  a  flash  to  the  highest  spray 
of  the  tree  and  began  to  flutter  in  a  trembling, 
peculiar  way,  with  its  wings  half-spread  and 
its  feathers  puffed  out.  Almost  immediately 
there  came  a  strange,  gurgling  series  of  notes, 
liquid  and  sweet,  that  seemed  to  express  utter 
rapture.  Then  the  bird  dropped,  with  a  back- 
ward motion,  from  the  spray,  and  began  to 
fall  slowly  and  somewhat  spirally  down  through 
the  bloom-covered  boughs.  Its  progress  was 
quite  like  that  of  a  bird  wounded  to  death  by  a 
shot,  clinging  here  and  there  to  a  twig,  quiver- 
ing and  weakly  striking  with  its  wings  as  it  fell, 
but  all  the  time  it  was  pouring  forth  the  most 
exquisite  gushes  and  trills  of  song,  not  at  all 
like  its  usual  medley  of  improvised  imitations 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.       13 

but  strikingly,  almost  startlingly,  individual 
and  unique.  The  bird  appeared  to  be  dying 
of  an  ecstasy  of  musical  inspiration.  The 
lower  it  fell  the  louder  and  more  rapturous 
became  its  voice,  until  the  song  ended  on  the 
ground  in  a  burst  of  incomparable  vocal  power. 
It  remained  for  a  short  time,  after  its  song 
was  ended,  crouching  where  it  had  fallen,  with 
its  wings  outspread,  and  quivering  and  pant- 
ing as  if  utterly  exhausted ;  then  it  leaped 
boldly  into  the  air  and  flew  away  into  an  ad- 
jacent thicket. 

Since  then,  as  I  have  said,  three  other  op- 
portunities have  been  afforded  me  of  witness- 
ing this  curiously  pleasing  exhibition  of  bird- 
acting.  I  can  half  imagine  what  another 
ode  Keats  might  have  written  had  his  eyes 
seen  and  his  ears  heard  that  strange,  fasci- 
nating, dramatically  rendered  song.  Or  it 
might  better  have  suited  Shelley's  powers  of  ex- 
pression. It  is  said  that  the  grandest  bursts  of 
oratory  are  those  which  contain  a  strong  trace 
of  a  reserve  of  power.  This  may  be  true  ;  but 
is  not  the  best  song  that  wherein  the  voice 
sweeps,  with  the  last  expression  of  ecstasy, 
from  wave  to  wave  of  music  until  with  a  su- 
preme effort  it  wreaks  its  fullest  power,  thus 
ending  in  a  victory  over  the  final  obstacle,  as 
if  with  its  utmost  reach  ?  Be  this  as  it  may, 
whoever  may  be  fortunate  enough  to  hear  the 
mocking-bird's  "dropping  song,"  and  at  the 
same  time  see  the  bird's  action,  will  at  once 
have  the  idea  of  genius,  pure  and  simple,  sug- 
gested to  him. 

The  high,  beautiful  country  around  Talla- 
hassee, in  Middle  Florida,  is  the  paradise  of 
mocking-birds.  I  am  surprised  to  find  this 


14  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

region  so  little  visited,  comparatively  speaking, 
by  those  who  really  desire  to  know  all  that  is 
beautiful  and  interesting  in  our  country.  Per- 
haps it  is  because  the  places  most  frequented 
by  the  mocking-bird  have  not  been  sought  by 
those  deeply  interested  in  bird-habits  and 
history,  that  so  little  is  known  of  the  most 
striking  traits  of  its  character.  Quite  certain 
it  is  that  no  monograph  exists  which  gives  to 
the  general  reader  any  approximate  idea  of 
our  great  American  singer.  I  must  say  just 
here  that  the  mocking-bird's  song  in  captivity, 
strong  and  sweet  as  it  is,  and  its  voice  from 
the  cage,  liquid,  flexible,  and  pure,  are  not 
in  the  least  comparable  to  what  they  are  in  the 
open-air  freedom  of  a  Southern  grove.  If  you 
would  hear  these  at  their  best,  and  they  are 
truly  worth  going  a  long  journey  to  hear,  you 
must  seek  some  secluded  grove  in  Southern 
Alabama,  Georgia,  or  Middle  Florida  about 
the  last  of  March  or  the  first  of  April,  when 
spring  is  in  its  prime  and  the  gulf  breezes  are 
flowing  over  all  that  semi-tropical  region. 

It  is  a  silly  notion,  without  any  foundation 
in  fact,  that  the  mocking-bird  in  its  wild  state 
is  a  mere  mimic,  without  a  song  of  its  own. 
The  truth  is  that  all  birds  get  their  notes,  as 
we  get  our  language,  by  imitating  what  they 
hear.  Very  few  of  them,  however,  are  suffi- 
ciently gifted  mentally  and  vocally  to  be  able 
to  pass  the  limitation  of  immemorial  heredity, 
or  to  feel  any  impulse  toward  any  attainments 
of  voice  beyond  what  they  catch  as  younglings 
from  their  parents.  Hence,  as  a  rule,  the 
young  bird  is  satisfied  with  the  pipes  and  calls 
caught  from  its  immediate  ancestors.  No 
doubt  a  lack  of  finely  developed  vocal  organs 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.       15 

has  much  to  do  with  this.  But  the  mocking- 
bird, the  brown-thrush,  and  the  cat-bird  are 
notable  exceptions  to  the  rule.  Nature  has 
endowed  them  with  an  instinctive  impulse 
toward  a  cultivation  of  their  vocal  powers,  as 
well  as  with  voices  capable  of  wonderful 
achievements. 

A  mocking-bird  reared  in  captivity  becomes 
much  more  a  mere  mimic  than  the  wild  bird, 
and  yet,  so  strong  is  the  hereditary  tendency, 
the  caged  bird  will  perfectly  sound  the  notes 
of  a  grossbeak  or  a  blue-jay  without  ever  hav- 
ing heard  them.  I  have  heard  a  mocking-bird, 
reared  in  a  cage  in  Indiana,  utter  with  singu- 
lar accuracy  the  cry  of  the  Southern  wood- 
pecker (Picus  querulus),  a  bird  I  have  never 
seen  north  of  the  Cumberland  Mountains. 

Many  little  incidents  noted  in  the  woods 
and  in  the  orchards  haunted  by  the  mocking- 
bird have  led  me  to  conclude  that  a  genuine 
sense  of  the  importance  of  singing  well  in- 
spires some  of  its  most  remarkable  efforts. 
One  morning  in  March,  1881,  J  looked  out  of 
a  window  in  the  old  City  Hotel  at  Talla- 
hassee, and  witnessed  a  pitched  battle  of  song 
between  a  brown-thrush  and  a  mocking-bird. 
In  the  grounds  about  the  Capitol  building 
across  the  street  stood  some  venerable  oak 
trees  just  beginning  to  leave  out.  The  birds 
had  each  chosen  a  perch  on  the  highest  prac- 
ticable point  of  a  tree.  They  were  not  more 
than  fifty  feet  apart,  and  with  swelling  throats 
were  evidently  vying  fiercely  with  each  other. 
This  gave  me  the  best  possible  opportunity  of 
comparing  their  styles  and  methods  of  expres- 
sion. To  my  ear  the  brown-thrush  in  the  wild 
state  is  a  sweeter  singer  than  any  caged  mock- 


1 6  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

ing-bird ;  but  when  both  are  free,  the  latter  is 
infinitely  superior  at  every  point.  There  is  a 
wide  variety  of  pure  flute-notes  expressed  by 
the  wild  mocking-bird.  These  notes  become 
vitiated  in  captivity  and  their  tone  degraded 
to  the  level  of  mere  mellow  piping.  In  the 
hedges  of  Cherokee  rose  that  grew  along  the 
old  Augustine  road  east  of  Tallahassee,  mock- 
ing-birds were  so  numerous  that  their  songs, 
mingling  together,  made  a  strange  din  which 
could  be  heard  a  long  way  on  a  still  morning. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  injustice  done 
the  mocking-bird  by  the  name  given  it,  but  at 
this  point  I  may  say  that  other  American  song 
birds  of  a  superior  order  have  suffered  even 
more  from  this  cause.  Cat-bird  and  thrasher, 
— what  names  to  be  embalmed  in  poetry  and 
romance  !  It  required  all  the  genius  of  Emer- 
son successfully  to  use  a  titmouse  as  the  sub- 
ject for  a  poem.  If  Bryant's  Lines  to  a  Water- 
fowl had  been  addressed  to  a  duck  or  a  snake- 
bird,  one  would  scarcely  be  content  to  accept 
the  poem  as  perfect.  A  name  certainly  has 
an  intrinsic  value. 

Mr.  Cable  in  his  powerful  novel,  Dr.  Sevier, 
speaks  of  the  mocking-bird's  morning  note  as 
unmusical.  At  certain  seasons  of  the  year  the 
bird's  voice  is  not  especially  pleasing,  but  this 
is  not  in  song-time.  Early  morning  and  the 
twilight  of  evening  in  the  spring  call  forth  its 
most  charming  powers.  Its  night  song  is 
sweet  and  peculiarly  effective,  but  except  on 
rare  occasions  in  the  nesting  season,  when  the 
moon  is  very  brilliant  the  nocturnal  notes  are 
pitched  in  a  minor  key  and  the  voice  is  less 
flexible  and  brilliant,  as  if  the  bird  were  sing- 
ing in  its  sleep. 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.       17 

In  Florida  and  in  the  valley  of  the  Alabama, 
I  observed  the  mocking-bird  assuming  a  famil- 
iarity with  man  very  closely  approaching  volun- 
tary domestication.  A  pair  had  their  nest  in 
a  small  vine-covered  peach-tree  close  to  the 
window  of  a  room  for  some  weeks  occupied  by 
me.  They  seemed  not  in  the  least  disturbed 
when  I  boldly  watched  them,  though  occasion- 
ally the  male  bird  was  inclined  to  scold  if  I 
raised  the  window.  Every  morning,  just  at 
the  peep  of  dawn,  the  singing  began,  and  was 
kept  up  at  intervals  all  day.  The  house  was 
a  mere  cabin  with  unchinked  cracks.  All  out- 
door sounds  came  in  freely.  The  Suwanee 
River,  made  famous  by  the  Old  Folks  at 
Home,  rippled  near,  and  the  heavy  perfume  of 
magnolia  flowers  filled  the  air.  My  vigorous 
exercise  in  the  woods  and  fields  by  day,  which 
was  sometimes  continued  far  into  the  night, 
made  me  sleep  soundly,  but  very  often  I  was 
aroused  sufficiently  to  be  aware  of  a  nocturne, 
all  the  sweeter  to  my  half-dreaming  sense  on 
account  of  its  plaintive  and  desultory  render- 
ing. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  Thomasville,  Geor- 
gia, a  mocking-bird's  nest,  built  in  a  pear- 
tree,  was  close  to  a  kitchen  door,  where  ser- 
vants were  all  day  passing  in  and  out  within 
ten  or  twelve  feet  of  the  sitting  bird.  The 
brood  was  hatched,  and  the  young  taken  by  a 
negro  and  sold  tQ  a  -New  York  tourist  for 
twenty  dollars.  The  birds  tore  up  their  nest 
as  soon  as  it  was  robbed,  and  appeared  greatly 
excited  for  a  few  days  ;  but  one  morning  the 
singing  began  again,  and  soon  after  a  new 
nest  was  built  a  little  higher  up  in  the  same 
tree. 
2 


1 8  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

It  has  been  told  of  the  mocking-birds  that, 
in  Louisiana  and  other  Southern  regions,  when 
such  of  them  as  have  taken  a  summer  jaunt  to 
New  England  or  Pennsylvania  return  to  the 
magnolia  and  orange  groves  in  late  autumn, 
they  are  attacked  by  their  resident  brethren. 
My  observation  has  not  tended  to  verify  this. 
Nor  can  I  bear  testimony  to  the  bravery  and 
fighting  qualities  of  the  mocking-bird.  The 
blue-bird  whips  it,  driving  it  hither  and  yon  at 
will,  though  not  more  than  half  its  size.  It  is, 
however,  a  famous  scold  and  blusterer,  accom- 
plishing a  good  deal  by  fierce  threats  and 
savage  demonstrations.  I  do  not  believe  the 
story  about  it  killing  snakes.  It  would  be  a 
very  small  and  weak  reptile  that  such  a  bird 
could  kill,  being  so  poorly  armed  for  warlike 
exploits. 

On  a  pedestrian  tour  through  the  loveliest 
and  loneliest  part  of  Middle  Florida,  I  was 
struck  with  the  strong  contrast  between  the 
negroes  and  the  white  people  as  to  the  extent 
and  accuracy  of  their  ornithological  knowledge, 
a  contrast  almost  as  marked  as  that  of  color. 
I  could  get  no  information  from  the  whites. 
They  had  never  paid  any  attention  to  mocking- 
birds. The  subject  appeared  to  them  too 
slight  and  trivial  to  be  worth  any  study.  But 
the  negroes  were  sometimes  enthusiastic,  al- 
ways interested  and  interesting.  Somehow 
there  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  fine  touch  of 
power  in  the  way  a  cabin,  a  few  banana-stalks, 
a  plum-tree  or  two,  and  a  straggling  bower  of 
grape-vines  get  themselves  together  for  the 
use  of  indolent  negroes  and  luxury-loving 
mocking-birds.  I  have  fancied  it,  or  else  there 
is  a  marked  preference  shown  by  the  songster 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.       19 

for  the  cots  of  the  freedmen,  and  there  can 
be  no  doubting  that  a  warm  feeling  for  the 
bird  is  nursed  by  the  ordinary  negro. 

As  I  have  suggested,  the  nature  of  the 
mocking-bird  is  that  of  a  resident  more  than 
that  of  a  migratory  bird,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
name  its  true  habitat  semi-tropical.  Even  so 
far  South  as  Macon,  Ga.,  and  in  the  region  of 
Montgomery,  Ala.,  the  chilly  days  of  midwin- 
ter are  sufficient  to  drive  the  birds  to  heavy 
cover.  In  fact,  a  large  majority  of  the  spe- 
cies of  Mimus  (Mimus  polyglottus  being  the 
scientific  name  of  the  mocking-bird)  are  to  be 
found  in  South  America  and  in  the  tropical 
islands  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  plantation  negroes  used  to  have  a  say- 
ing which  might  serve  the  turn  of  Mr.  Harris 
or  Mr.  Macon  :  "  Takes  a  red-hot  sun  fo'  ter 
bri'l  de  mockin '-bird's  tongue,  but  er  mighty 
small  fros'  er  gwine  ter  freeze  'im  froat  up 
solid."  Mr.  Fred.  A.  Ober,  in  his  report  of 
explorations  made  in  the  Okeechobee  region, 
does  not  mention  seeing  the  mocking-bird,  but 
it  is  there,  nevertheless,  or  was  in  1867.  I  re- 
member seeing  a  fine  fellow  flying  about  in 
some  small  bushes,  near  the  remains  of  a  de- 
serted cabin,  on  the  north-eastern  shore  of  the 
lake.  I  saw  some  paroquets  at  the  same 
place. 

On  what  is  known  as  the  Dauphine  Way, 
running  west  from  Dauphine  Street  in  Mobile, 
mocking-birds  used  to  be  numerous,  nesting  in 
the  groves  on  either  side  and  filling  the  air 
with  their  songs.  Whoever  has  walked  out 
on  this  lovely  road  will  remember  a  low,  old- 
fashioned  brick  house,  no  doubt  a  plantation 
residence  one  day,  with  a  row  of  queer  little 


20  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

dormer  windows  on  the  roof  in  front,  and 
graduated  parapets  to  hide  the  gables,  a  long 
lean-to  veranda  and  a  row  of  chimneys,  a  dark, 
heavy-looking  building  near  the  south  side  of 
the  Way.  In  a  small  tree  just  east  of  this 
house  used  to  sing  a  mocking-bird  whose  voice 
was  as  much  above  the  average  of  his  kind  as 
Patti's  voice  is  above  the  average  woman's 
voice.  If  one  could  get  a  caged  bird  to  sing 
as  that  one  did,  he  might  profitably  advertise 
it  for  concerts.  A  friend  and  I  sat  down 
across  the  Way  from  the  house,  and,  while  the 
gulf  breeze  poured  over  us  and  the  bird  music 
filled  our  ears,  got  a  sketch  of  the  charmingly 
picturesque  old  place  ;  but  somehow  we  could 
not  put  in  the  song  of  the  wonderful  mocking- 
bird. 

Bird-fanciers  and  bird-buyers  may  profit  by 
what  I  now  whisper  to  them,  to  wit :  the  best- 
voiced  mocking-birds,  without  a  doubt,  are 
those  bred  in  Middle  Florida  and  Southern 
Alabama.  I  have  no  theory  in  connection 
with  this  statement  of  a  fact ;  but  if  I  were 
going  to  risk  the  reputation  of  our*  country  on 
the  singing  of  a  mocking-bird  against  a  Euro- 
pean nightingale,  I  should  choose  my  cham- 
pion from  the  hill-country  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Tallahassee,  or  from  the  environs  of  Mo- 
bile. 

No  doubt  proper  food  has  much  to  do  with 
the  development  of  the  bird  in  all  its  parts, 
and  it  may  be  that  the  dry,  fertile,  chocolate- 
tinted  hills  that  swell  up  along  the  Gulf  Coast 
produce  just  the  berries,  insects,  and  other  tid- 
bits needed  for  the  mocking-bird's  fullest 
growth.  Then,  perhaps,  the  climate  best  suits 
the  bird's  nature.  Be  this  as  it  may,  I  have 


HAUNTS  OF  THE  MOCKING-BIRD.       21 

found  no  birds  elsewhere  to  compare  with 
those  in  that  belt  of  country  about  thirty  miles 
wide,  stretching  from  Live  Oak  in  Florida,  by 
way  of  Tallahassee,  to  some  miles  west  of  Mo- 
bile. Nor  is  there  anywhere  a  more  interest- 
ing country  to  him  who  delights  in  pleasant 
wildwood  rambles,  unusual  scenery,  and  a 
wonderful  variety  of  birds  and  flowers  in  their 
season. 

Most  of  our  descriptive  ornithologists  have 
taken  great  pains  to  assure  their  readers  that 
the  American  mocking-bird  is  very  plain,  if 
not  positively  unattractive  in  its  plumage.  But 
to  my  eye  the  graceful  little  fellow,  especially 
when  flying,  is  an  object  of  real  beauty. 
There  is  a  silver-white  flash  to  his  wings,  along 
with  a  shimmer  of  gray,  and  a  dusky,  shadowy 
twinkle,  so  to  speak,  about  his  head  and  shoul- 
ders, as  you  see  him  fluttering  through  the  top 
of  an  orange  tree  or  climbing,  in  his  peculiar 
zigzag  way,  the  gnarled  boughs  of  a  fig-bush. 
His  throat  and  breast  are  the  perfection  of 
symmetry,  and  his  eyes  are  clear  pale  gold, 
bright  and  alert.  The  eggs  of  the  mocking- 
bird are  delicate  and  shapely,  having  a  body 
color  of  pale,  ashy  green  tinged  with  blue  and 
blotched  with  brown.  The  eggs  of  the  shrike 
closely  resemble  those  of  the  mocking-bird,  so 
that  the  amateur  naturalist  is  often  deceived. 
The  nests  of  the  two  birds  are  also  very  much 
alike  in  shape  and  materials,  and  the  places  in 
which  they  are  usually  found  are  exactly  simi- 
lar, a  lonely  thorny  tree  being  preferred,  if  in 
the  wildwood,  and  a  pear-tree  or  a  plum-tree 
if  in  an  orchard. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  every  one  who  has 
studied,  or  who  hereafter  may  study,  the 


22  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

mocking-bird  in  its  proper  haunts  will  agree 
with  me  that  its  voice  is  something  far  more 
marvellous  than  has  ever  been  dreamed  of  by 
those  who  have  heard  it  only  from  the  cage ; 
and  especially  will  the  lover  of  high  dramatic 
art  and  consummate  individuality  of  manner 
and  vocalization  be  charmed  with  the  bird's 
exquisite  "  dropping  song,"  if  once  he  has  the 
good  fortune  to  witness  its  delivery  and  hear 
its  rhythmic  gushes  of  rapture. 


A   RED-HEADED   FAMILY. 

"  CE'TINGLY  I  ken,  ce'tingly,  seh,"  said  my 
Cracker  host,  taking  down  his  long  flint-lock 
rifle  from  over  the  cabin  door  and  slipping  his 
frowzy  head  through  the  suspension-strap  of 
his  powder-horn  and  bullet-pouch.  "  Ce'tingly, 
seh,  I  ken  cyarry  ye  ter  wha'  them  air  birds 
lied  their  nestis  las'  yer." 

I  had  passed  the  night  in  the  cabin,  and  now 
as  I  recall  the  experience  to  mind,  there  comes 
the  grateful  fragrance  of  pine  wood  to  empha- 
size the  memory.  Corn  "  pones  "  and  broiled 
chicken,  fried  bacon  and  sweet  potatoes, 
strong  coffee  and  scrambled  eggs — a  break- 
fast, indeed,  to  half  persuade  one  that  a 
Cracker  is  a  bon  vivant — had  just  been  eaten. 
I  was  standing  outside  the  cabin  on  the  rude 
door-step.  Far  off  through  the  thin  pine  woods 
to  the  eastward,  where  the  sun  was  beginning 
to  flash,  a  herd  of  "  scrub  "  cattle  were  formed 
into  a  wide  skirmish  line  of  browsers,  led  by 
an  old  cow,  whose  melancholy  bell  clanged  in 
time  to  her  desultory  movements.  Near  by, 
to  the  westward,  lay  one  of  those  great  gloomy 
swamps,  so  common  in  Southeastern  Georgia, 
so  repellant  and  yet  so  fascinating,  so  full  of 
interest  to  the  naturalist,  and  yet  so  little  ex- 
plored. The  perfume  of  yellow  jasmine  was 
in  the  air,  along  with  those  indescribable 
woodsy  odors  which  almost  evade  the  sense 
of  smell,  and  yet  so  pleasingly  impress  it.  A 
rivulet,  slow,  narrow,  and  deep,  passed  near  the 


24  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

front  of  the  cabin,  with  a  faint,  dreamy  mur- 
mur and  crept  darkling  into  the  swamp  be- 
tween dense  brakes  of  cane,  and  bay-bushes. 

"  Ye-as,  seh,  I  ken  mek  er  bee-line  to  that 
air  ole  pine  snag.  Hit  taint  more'n  er  half  er 
mile  out  yender,"  continued  my  host  and  vol- 
unteer guide,  as  we  climbed  the  little  worm- 
fence  that  inclosed  the  house  ;  "  but  I  allus 
called  'em  air  birds  woodcocks  ;  didn't  know 
'at  they  hed  any  other  name ;  allus  thut  'at  a 
Peckwood  wer'  a  leetle,  tinty,  stripedy  feller ; 
never  hyeard  er  them  air  big  ole  woodcocks 
a  bein'  called  Peckwoods." 

He  led  and  I  followed  into  the  damp,  m6ss- 
scented  shadows  of  the  swamp,  under  cypress 
and  live-oak  and  through  slender  fringes  of 
cane.  We  floundered  across  the  coffee-colored 
stream,  the  water  cooling  my  india-rubber 
wading-boots  above  the  knees,  climbed  over 
great  walls  of  fallen  tree-boles,  crept  under 
low-hanging  festoons  of  wild  vines,  and  at 
length  found  ourselves  wading  rather  more 
than  ankle-deep  in  one  of  those  shallow 
cypress  lakes  of  which  the  larger  part  of  the 
Okefenokee  region  is  formed.  I  thought  it  a 
very  long  half-mile  before  we  reached  a  small 
tussock  whereon  grew,  in  the  midst  of  a  dense 
underbrush  thicket,  .some  enormous  pine 
trees. 

"  Ther',"  said  the  guide,  "  thet  air  snag  air 
the  one.  Sorter  on  ter  tother  side  ye'll  see 
the  hole,  'bout  twenty  foot  up.  Kem  yer,  I'll 
show  hit  ter  ye." 

The  "snag"  was  'a  stump  some  fifty  feet 
tall,  barkless,  smooth,  almost  as  white  as  chalk, 
the  decaying  remnant  of  what  had  once  been 
the  grandest  pine  on  the  tussock. 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  25 

"  Hello,  yer'  !  Hit's  ben  to  work  some  more 
sence  I  wer'  yer'  las'  time.  Hit  air  done  dug 
another  hole !  " 

As  he  spoke  he  pointed  indicatively,  with 
his  long,  knotty  forefinger.  I  looked  and  saw 
two  large  round  cavities,  not  unlike  immense 
auger-holes,  running  darkly  into  the  polished 
surface  of  the  stump,  one  about  six  feet  below 
the  other ;  the  lower  twenty-five  feet  above  the 
ground.  Surely  it  was  no  very  striking  pict- 
ure, this  bare,  weather-whitened  column,  with 
its  splintered  top  and  its  two  orifices,  and  yet 
I  do  not  think  it  was  a  weakness  for  me  to 
feel  a  thrill  of  delight  as  I  gazed  at  it.  How 
long  and  how  diligently  I  had  sought  the  home 
of  Campephilns  printipalis,  the  great  king  of 
the  red-headed  family,  and  at  last  I  stood  be- 
fore its  door  ! 

At  my  request,  the  kind  Cracker  now  left 
me  alone  to  prosecute  my  observations. 

"  Be  in  ter  dinner  ? "  he  inquired  as  he 
turned  to  go. 

"  No  ;  supper,"  I  responded. 

"Well,  tek  cyare  ev  yerself,"  and  off  he 
went  into  the  thickest  part  of  the  cypress. 

I  waited  awhile  for  the  solitude  to  regain  its 
equilibrium  after  the  slashing  tread  of  my 
friend  had  passed  out  of  hearing ;  then  I  stole 
softly  to  the  stump,  and  tapped  on  it  with  the 
handle  of  my  knife.  This  I  repeated  several 
times.  Campephilus  was  not  at  home,  for  if  he 
had  been  I  should  have  seen  a  long,  strong, 
ivory-white  beak  thrust  out  of  the  hole  up 
there,  followed  by  a  great  red-crested  head 
turned  sidewise  so  as  to  let  fall  upon  me  the 
glint  of  an  iris  unequalled  by  that  of  any  other 
bird  in  the  world.  He  had  gone  out  early.  I 


26  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

should  have  to  wait  and  watch  ,  but  first  I  sat- 
isfied myself  by  a  simple  method  that  my 
watching  would  probably  not  be  in  vain.  A 
little  examination  of  the  ground  at  the  base  of 
the  stump  showed  me  a  quantity  of  fresh  wood- 
fragments,  not  unlike  very  coarse  saw-dust 
scattered  over  the  surface.  This  assured  me 
that  one  of  the  excavations  above  was  a  new 
one,  and  that  a  nest  was  either  building  or  had 
been  finished  but  a  short  while.  So  I  hastily 
hid  myself  on  a  log  in  a  clump  of  bushes,  dis- 
tant from  the  stump  about  fifty  feet,  whence  I 
could  plainly  see  the  holes. 

One  who  has  never  been  out  alone  in  a 
Southern  swamp  can  have  no  fair  understand- 
ing of  its  loneliness,  solemnity  and  funereal 
sadness  of  effect.  Even  in  the  first  gush  of 
Spring — it  was  now  about  the  sixth  of  April — 
I  felt  the  weight  of  something  like  eternity  in 
the  air — not  the  eternity  of  the  future  but  the 
eternity  of  the  past.  Everything  around  me 
appeared  old,  sleepy,  and  musty,  despite  the 
fresh  buds,  tassels,  and  flower-spikes.  What 
can  express  dreariness  so  effectually  as  the 
long  moss  of  those  damp  woods  ?  I  imagined 
that  the  few  little  birds  I  saw  flitting  here  and 
there  in  the  tree  tops  were  not  so  noisy  and 
joyous  as  they  would  be  when,  a  month  later, 
their  northward  migration  should  bring  them 
into  our  greening  northern  woods.  As  the 
sun  mounted,  however,  a  cheerful  twitter  ran 
with  the  gentle  breeze  through  the  bay  thickets 
and  magnolia  clumps,  and  I  recognized  a 
number  of  familiar  voices ;  then  suddenly  the 
gavel  of  Campephilus  sounded  sharp  and 
strong  a  quarter-mile  away.  A  few  measured 
raps,  followed  by  a  rattling  drum-call,  a  space 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  27 

of  silence  rimmed  with  receding  echoes,  and 
then  a  trumpet-note,  high,  full,  vigorous,  al- 
most startling,  cut  the  air  with  a  sort  of  broad- 
sword sweep.  Again  the  long-roll  answered, 
from  a  point  nearer  me,  by  two  or  three  ham- 
mer-like raps  on  the  resonant  branch  of  some 
dead  cypress-tree.  The  king  and  queen  were 
coming  to  their  palace.  I  waited  patiently, 
knowing  that  it  was  far  beyond  my  power  to 
hurry  their  movements.  It  was  not  long  be- 
fore one  of  the  birds,  with  a  rapid  cackling 
that  made  the  wood  rattle,  came  over  my  head, 
and  went  straight  to  the  stump,  where  it  lit, 
just  below  the  lower  hole,  clinging  gracefully 
to  the  trunk.  It  was  a  superb  specimen — the 
female,  and  I  suspected  that  she  had  come  to 
leave  an  egg.  I  could  have  killed  her  easily 
with  the  little  sixteen-gauge  breech-loader  at 
my  side,  but  I  would  not  have  done  the  act 
for  all  the  stuffed  birds  in  the  country.  I  had 
come  as  a  visitor  to  this  palace,  with  the  hope 
of  making  the  acquaintance  I  had  so  long  de- 
sired, and  not  as  an  assassin.  She  was  quite 
unaware  of  me,  and  so  behaved  naturally,  her 
large  gold-amber  eyes  glaring  with  that  wild 
sincerity  of  expression  seen  in  the  eyes  of  but 
few  savage  things. 

After  a  little  while  the  male  came  bounding 
through  the  air,  with  that  vigorous  galloping 
flight  common  to  all  our  woodpeckers,  and  lit 
on  a  fragmentary  projection  at  the  top  of  the 
stump.  He  showed  larger  than  his  mate,  and 
his  aspect  was  more  fierce,  almost  savage. 
The  green-black  feathers  near  his  shoulders, 
the  snow-white  lines  down  his  neck,  and  the 
tall  red  crest  on  his  head,  all  shone  with  great 
brilliancy,  whilst  his  ivory  beak  gleamed  like  a 


28  B  Y-  WA  YS-  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

dagger.  He  soon  settled  for  me  a  question 
which  had  long  been  in  my  mind.  With  two 
or  three  light  preliminary  taps  on  a  hard  heart- 
pine  splinter,  he  proceeded  to  beat  the  regular 
woodpecker  drum-call — that  long  rolling  rattle 
made  familiar  to  us  all  by  the  common  red- 
head (Melanerpes  erythrocephalus)  and  our 
other  smaller  woodpeckers.  This  peculiar 
call  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  the  result  of  elasticity 
or  springiness  in  the  wood  upon  which  it  is 
performed,  but  is  effected  by  a  rapid,  spas- 
modic motion  of  the  bird's  head,  imparted  by  a 
voluntary  muscular  action.  I  have  seen  the 
common  Red-head  make  a  soundless  call  on  a 
fence-stake  where  the  decaying  wood  was 
scarcely  hard  enough  to  prevent  the  full  en- 
trance of  his  beak.  His  head  went  through 
the  same  rapid  vibration,  but  no  sound  accom- 
panied the  performance.  '  Still,  it  is  resonance 
in  the  wood  that  the  bird  desires,  and  it  keeps 
trying  until  a  good  sounding-board  is  found. 

It  was  very  satisfying  to  me  when  the  superb 
King  of  the  Woodpeckers — pic  noir  a  bee  blanc, 
as  the  great  French  naturalist  named  it — went 
over  the  call,  time  after  time,  with  grand  effect, 
letting  go,  between  trials,  one  or  two  of  his 
triumphant  trumpet-notes.  Hitherto  I  had 
not  seen  the  Campephilus  do  this,  though  I 
had  often  heard  what  I  supposed  to  be  the  call. 
As  I  crouched  in  my  hiding-place  and  furtively 
watched  the  proceedings,  I  remember  compar- 
ing the  birds  and  their  dwelling  to  some  half- 
savage  lord  and  lady  and  their  isolated  castle 
of  medieval  days.  A  twelfth-century  bandit 
nobleman  might  have  gloried  in  trigging  him- 
self in  such  apparel  as  my  ivory-billed  wood- 
pecker wore.  What  a  perfect  athlete  he  ap- 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  29 

peared  to  be,  as  he  braced  himself  for  an  ef- 
fort which  was  to  generate  a  force  sufficient  to 
hurl  his  heavy  head  and  beak  back  and  forth 
at  a  speed  of  about  twenty-eight  strokes  to 
the  second  ! 

All  of  our  woodpeckers,  pure  and  simple — 
that  is,  all  of  the  species  in  which  the  wood- 
pecker character  has  been  preserved  almost 
unmodified — have  exceedingly  muscular  heads 
and  strikingly  constricted  necks ;  their  beaks 
are  nearly  straight,  wedge-shaped,  fluted  or 
ribbed  on  the  upper  mandible,  and  their  nos- 
trils are  protected  by  hairy  or  feathery  tufts. 
Their  legs  are  strangely  short  in  appearance, 
but  are  exactly  adapted  to  their  need,  and  their 
tail-feathers  are  tipped  with  stiff  points.  These 
features  are  all  fully  developed  in  the  Campe- 
philus  printipalis,  the  bill  especially  showing  a 
size,  strength  and  symmetrical  beauty  truly 
wonderful. 

The  stiff  pointed  tail-feathers  of  the  wood- 
pecker serve  the  bird  a  turn  which  I  have 
never  seen  noted  by  any  ornithologist.  When 
the  bird  must  strike  a  hard  blow  with  its  bill, 
it  does  not  depend  solely  upon  its  neck  and 
head  ;  but,  bracing  the  points  of  its  tail-feath- 
ers against  the  tree,  and  rising  to  the  full 
length  of  its  short,  powerful  legs,  and  drawing 
back  its  body,  head,  and  neck  to  the  farthest 
extent,  it  dashes  its  bill  home  with  all  the 
force  of  its  entire  bodily  weight  and  muscle.  I 
have  seen  the .  ivory-bill,  striking  thus,  burst 
off  from  almost  flinty-hard  dead  trees  frag- 
ments of  wood  half  as  large  as  my  hand  ;  and 
once  in  the  Cherokee  hills  of  Georgia  I  watched 
a  pileated  woodpecker  (Hylotomus  pileatus)  dig 
a  hole  to  the  very  heart  of  an  exceedingly 


30  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

tough,  green,  mountain  hickory  tree,  in  order 
to  reach  a  nest  of  winged  ants.  The  point  of 
ingress  of  the  insects  was  a  small  hole  in  a 
punk  knot ;  but  the  bird,  by  hopping  down  the 
tree  tail-foremost  and  listening,  located  the 
nest  about  five  feet  below,  and  there  it  pro- 
ceeded to  bore  through  the  gnarled,  cross- 
grained  wood  to  the  hollow. 

Of  all  our  wild  American  birds,  I  have 
studied  no  other  one  which  combines  all  of  the 
elements  of  wildness  so  perfectly  in  its  char- 
acter as  does  the  ivory-billed  woodpecker.  It 
has  no  trace  whatever  in  its  nature  of  what 
may  be  called  a  tamable  tendency.  Savage 
liberty  is  a  prerequisite  of  its  existence,  and  its 
home  is  the  depths  of  the  woods,  remotest 
from  the  activities  of  civilized  man.  It  is  a 
rare  bird,  even  in  the  most  favorable  regions, 
and  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  specimens  of 
its  eggs.  Indeed,  I  doubt  if  there  are  a  dozen 
cabinets  in  all  the  world  containing  these  eggs ; 
but  they  are  almost  exactly  similar  in  size, 
color  and  shape  to  those  of  Hylotomus  pileatus, 
the  only  difference  being  that  the  latter  are, 
upon  close  examination,  found  to  be  a  little 
shorter,  and,  as  I  have  imagined,  a  shade  less 
semi-transparent  porcelain-white,  if  I  may  so 
express  it. 

The  visit  of  my  birds  to  their  home  in  the 
stump  lasted  nearly  two  hours.  The  female 
went  into  and  out  of  the  hole  several  times 
before  she  finally  settled  herself,  as  I  suppose, 
on  her  nest.  When  she  came  forth  at  the  end 
of  thirty  or  forty  minutes,  she  appeared  ex- 
ceedingly happy,  cackling  in  a  low,  harsh, 
but  rather  wheedling  voice,  and  evidently 
anxious  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  male, 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  31 

who  in  turn  treated  her  with  lofty  contempt. 
To  him  the  question  of  a  new  egg  was  not 
worth  considering.  But  when  she  at  last 
turned  away  from  him,  and  mounting  into  the 
air,  galloped  off  into  the  solemn  gloom  of  the 
cypress  wood,  he  followed  her,  trumpeting  at 
the  top  of  his  voice. 

Day  after  day  I  returned  to  my  hiding-place 
to  renew  my  observation,  and,  excepting  a 
visitation  of  mosquitoes  now  and  then,  noth- 
ing occurred  to  mar  my  enjoyment.  As  the 
weather  grew  warmer  the  flowers  and  leaves 
came  on  apace,  and  the  swamp  became  a  vast 
wilderness  of  perfume  and  contrasting  colors. 
Bird  songs  from  migrating  warblers,  vireos, 
finches  and  other  happy  sojourners  for  a  day 
(or  mayhap  they  were  all  nesting  there,  I  can- 
not say,  for  I  had  larger  fish  to  fry),  shook  the 
wide  silence  into  sudden  resonance.  Along 
the  sluggish  little  stream  between  the  cane- 
brakes,  the  hermit-thrush  and  the  cat-bird  were 
met  by  the  green  heron  and  the  belted  king- 
fisher. The  snake-bird,  too,  that  veritable 
water-dragon  of  the  South,  was  there,  wrig- 
gling and  squirming  in  the  amber-brown  pools 
amongst  the  lily-pads  and  lettuce. 

At  last,  one  morning,  my  woodpeckers  dis- 
covered me  in  my  hiding-place ;  and  that  was 
the  end  of  all  intimacy  between  us.  Thence- 
forth my  observations  were  few  and  at  a  long 
distance.  No  amount  of  cunning  could  serve 
me  any  turn.  Go  as  early  as  I  might,  and  hide 
as  securely  as  I  could,  those  great  yellow  eyes 
quickly  espied  me,  and  then  there  would  be  a 
rapid  and  long  flight  away  into  the  thickest 
and  most  difficult  part  of  the  swamp. 

I  confess  that  it  was  with  no  little  debate 


32  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

that  I  reached  the  determination  that  it  was 
my  duty  to  rob  that  nest  in  the  interest  of 
knowledge.  It  was  the  first  opportunity  I  ever 
had  had  to  examine  an  occupied  nest  of  the 
Campephilus  printipalis,  and  I  felt  that  it  was 
scarcely  probable  that  I  should  ever  again  be 
favored  with  such  a  chance.  With  the  aid  of 
my  Cracker  host,  I  erected  a  rude  ladder  and 
climbed  up  into  the  hole.  It  was  almost 
exactly  circular,  and  nearly  five  inches  in  di- 
ameter. With  a  little  axe  I  began  break- 
ing and  hacking  away  the  crust  of  hard  outer 
wood.  The  cavity  descended  with  a  slightly 
spiral  course,  widening  a  little  as  it  proceeded. 
I  had  followed  it  nearly  five  feet  when  I  found 
a  place  where  it  was  contracted  again,  and  im- 
mediately below  was  a  sudden  expansion,  at 
the  bottom  of  which  was  the  nest.  Five 
beautiful  pure  white  eggs  of  the  finest  old- 
china  appearance,  delicate,  almost  transparent, 
exceedingly  fragile,  and,  to  the  eyes  of  a 
collector,  vastly  valuable,  lay  in  a  shallow 
bowl  of  fine  chips.  But  in  breaking  away  the 
last  piece  of  wood-crust,  I  jerked  it  a  little  too 
hard,  and  those  much  coveted  prizes  rolled  out 
and  fell  to  the  ground.  Of  course  they  were 
"  hopelessly  crushed,"  and  my  feelings  with 
them.  I  would  willingly  have  fallen  in  their 
stead,  if  the  risk  could  have  saved  the  eggs. 
I  descended  ruefully  enough,  hearing  as  I  did 
so  the  loud  cry  of  Campephilus  battling  around 
in  the  jungle.  Once  or  twice  more  I  went 
back  to  the  spot  in  early  morning,  but  my 
birds  did  not  appear.  I  made  minute  exami- 
nation of  the  rifled  nest,  and  also  tore  out  the 
other  excavation,  so  as  to  compare  the  two. 
They  were  very  much  alike,  especially  in  the 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  33 

jug-shape  of  their  lower  ends.  From  a  care- 
ful study  of  all  the  holes  (apparently  made  by 
Campephilus)  that  I  have  been  able  to  find 
and  reach  in  either  standing  or  fallen  trees,  I 
am  led  to  believe  that  this  jug-shape  is  pecul- 
iar to  the  ivory-bill's  architecture,  as  I  have 
never  found  it  in  the  excavations  of  other 
species,  save  where  the  form  was  evidently  the 
result  of  accident.  The  depth  of  the  hole 
varies  from  three  to  seven  feet,  as  a  rule,  but  I 
found  one  that  was  nearly  nine  feet  deep  and 
another  that  was  less  than  two.  Our  smaller 
woodpeckers,  including  Hylotomus  pileatus, 
usually  make  their  excavations  in  the  shape  of 
a  gradually  widening  pocket,  of  which  the  en- 
trance is  the  narrowest  part. 

It  is  curious  to  note  that — beginning  with  the 
ivory-bill  and  coming  down  the  line  of  species 
in  the  scale  of  size — we  find  the  red  mark  on 
the  head  rapidly  falling  away  from  a  grand 
scarlet  crest  some  inches  in  height  to  a  mere 
touch  of  carmine,  or  dragon's  blood,  on  crown, 
nape,  cheek,  or  chin.  The  lofty  and  brilliant 
head-plume  of  the  ivory-bill,  his  powerful  beak, 
his  semi-circular  claws  and  his  perfectly  spiked 
tail,  as  well  as  his  superiority  of  size  and 
strength,  indicate  that  he  is  what  he  is,  the 
original  type  of  the  woodpecker,  and  the  one 
pure  species  left  to  us  in  America.  He  is  the 
only  woodpecker  which  eats  insects  and  larvae 
(dug  out  of  rotten  wood)  exclusively.  Neither 
the  sweetest  fruits  nor  the  oiliest  grains  can 
tempt  him  to  depart  one  line  from  his  heredit- 
ary habit.  He  accepts  no  gifts  from  man,  and 
asks  no  favors.  But  the  pileated  woodpecker, 
just  one  remove  lower  in  the  scale  of  size, 
strength,  and  beauty,  shows  a  little  tendency 
3 


34  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

towards  a  grain  and  fruit  diet,  and  it  also  often 
descends  to  old  logs  and  fallen  boughs  for  its 
food — a  thing  never  thought  of  by  the  ivory- 
bill.  As  for  the  rest  of  the  red-headed  family, 
they  are  degenerate  species,  though  lively, 
clever,  and  exceedingly  interesting.  What  a 
sad  dwarf  the  little  downy  woodpecker  is  when 
compared  with  the  ivory-bill!  and  yet  to  my 
mind  it  is  clear  that  Picus  pubescens  is  the  de- 
generate off-shoot  from  the  grand  campephilus 
trunk. 

Our  red-headed  woodpecker  (M.  erythro- 
cephalus)  is  a  genuine  American  in  every  sense. 
a  plausible,  querulous,  aggressive,  enterpris- 
ing, crafty  fellow,  who  tries  every  mode  of  get- 
ting a  livelihood,  and  always  with  success.  He 
is  a  woodpecker,  a  nut-eater,  a  cider-taster,  a 
judge  of  good  fruits,  a  connoisseur  of  corn, 
wheat,  and  melons,  and  an  expert  fly-catcher  as 
well.  As  if  to  correspond  with  his  versatility 
of  habit,  his  plumage  is  divided  into  four  reg- 
ular masses  of  color.  His  head  and  neck  are 
crimson,  his  back,  down  to  secondaries,  a 
brilliant  black,  tinged  with  green  or  blue  in 
the  gloss  ;  then  comes  a  broad  girdle  of  pure 
white,  followed  by  a  mass  of  black  at  the  tail 
and  wing-tips.  He  readily  adapts  himself  to 
the  exigencies  of  civilized  life.  I  prophecy 
that,  within  less  than  a  hundred  years  to  come, 
he  will  be  making  his  nest  on  the  ground,  in 
hedges  or  in  the  crotches  of  orchard  trees. 
Already  he  has  begun  to  push  his  way  out  into 
our  smaller  Western  prairies,  where  there  is  no 
dead  timber  for  him  to  make  his  nest-holes  in. 
I  found  a  compromise-nest  between  two  fence- 
rails  in  Illinois,  which  was  probably  a  fair  index 
of  the  future  habit  of  the  red-head.  It  was 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  35 

formed  by  pecking  away  the  inner  sides  of  two 
vertical  parallel  rails,  just  above  a  horizontal 
one,  upon  which,  in  a  cup  of  pulverized  wood, 
the  eggs  were  laid.  This  was  in  the  prairie 
country  between  two  vast  fields  of  Indian  corn. 
The  power  of  sight  exhibited  by  the  red- 
headed woodpecker  is  quite  amazing.  I  have 
seen  the  bird,  in  the  early  twilight  of  a  summer 
evening,  start  from  the  highest  spire  of  a  very 
tall  tree,  and  fly  a  hundred  yards  straight  to  an 
insect  near  the  ground.  He  catches  flies  on 
the  wing  with  as  deft  a  turn  as  does  the  great- 
crested  fly-catcher.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to 
offer  any  ornithological  theories,  in  this  pa- 
per ;  but  I  cannot  help  remarking  that  the  far- 
ther a  species  of  woodpecker  departs  from  the 
feeding-habit  of  the  ivory-bill,  the  more  broken 
up  are  its  color-masses,  and  the  more  diffused 
or  degenerate  becomes  the  typical  red  tuft  on 
the  head.  The  golden-winged  woodpecker 
(Colaptes  auratus],  for  instance,  feeds  much  on 
the  ground,  eating  earth-worms,  seeds,  beetles, 
etc. ;  and  we  find  him  taking  on  the  colors  of 
the  ground-birds  with  a  large  loss  of  the  char- 
acteristic woodpecker  arrangement  of  plumage 
arid  color-masses.  He  looks  much  more  like 
a  meadow-lark  than  like  an  ivory-bill !  The 
red  appears  in  a  delicate  crescent,  barely  no- 
ticeable on  the  back  of  the  head,  and  its  bill 
is  slender,  curved,  and  quite  unfit  for  hard 
pecking.  On  the  other  hand,  the  downy 
woodpecker,  and  the  hairy  woodpecker,  having 
kept  well  in  the  line  of  the  typical  feeding 
habit,  though  seeking  their  food  in  places  be- 
neath the  notice  of  their  great  progenitor, 
have  preserved  in  a  marked  degree  an  outline 
of  the  ivory-bill's  color-masses,  degenerate 


36  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  ^BIRD-NO  TES. 

though  they  are.  The  dwarfish,  insignificant 
looking  Picus  pubescens  pecking  away  at  the 
stem  of  a  dead  iron-weed  to  get  the  minute 
larvae  that  may  be  imbedded  in  the  pith,  when 
compared  with  Campephilus  principalis  drum- 
ming on  the  bole  of  a  giant  cypress-tree,  is 
like  a  Digger  Indian  when  catalogued  in  a  col- 
umn with  men  like  Goethe  and  Gladstone, 
Napoleon  and  Lincoln. 

I  have  been  informed  that  the  ivory-bill  is 
occasionally  found  in  the  Ohio  valley  ;  but  I 
have  never  been  able  to  discover  it  north  of 
the  Cumberland  range  of  mountains.  It  is  a 
swamp  bird,  or  rather  it  is  the  bird  of  the  high 
timber  that  grows  in  low  wet  soil.  Its  princi- 
pal food  is  a  large  flat-headed  timber-worm 
known  in  the  South  as  borer  or  saw-worm, 
which  it  discovers  by  ear  and  reaches  by  dili- 
gent and  tremendously  effective  pecking.  A 
Cracker  deer-stalker,  whom  I  met  at  Black- 
shear,  Georgia,  gave  an  amusing  account  of  an 
experience  he  had  had  in  the  swamps.  He 
said  : 

"  I  had  turned  in  late,  and  got  to  sleep  on 
a  tussock  under  a  big  pine,  an'  slep'  tell  sun- 
up. Wull,  es  ther'  I  laid  flat  er  my  back  an' 
er  snorin'  away,  kerwhack  sumpen  tuck  me 
in  the  face  an'  eyes,  jes'  like  spankin'  er 
baby,  an'  I  wuk  up  with  ergret  chunk  er  wood 
ercross  my  nose,  an'  er  blame  ole  woodcock 
jest  er  whangin'  erway  up  in  thet  pine.  My 
nose  hit  bled  an'  bled,  an'  I  hed  er  good  mint 
er  shoot  thet  air  bird,  but  I  cudn't  stan'  the 
expense  er  the  thing.  Powder'n'  lead  air 
mighty  costive.  Anyhow  I  don't  s'pose  'at 
the  ole  woodcock  knowed  at  hit'd  drapped  thet 
air  fraygment  onto  me.  Ef  hit'd  er  'peared 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  37 

like's  ef  hit  wer'  'joyin'  the  joke  any,  I  wud  er 
shot  hit  all  ter  pieces  ef  I'd  er  hed  ter  lived 
on  turpentime  all  winter  !  " 

Of  the  American  woodpecker  there  are  more 
than  thirty  varieties,  I  believe,  nearly  every 
one  of  which  bears  some  trace  of  the  grand 
scarlet  crown  of  the  great  ivory-billed  king  of 
them  all.  The  question  arises — and  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  answer  it — whether  the  ivory- 
bill  is  an  example  of  the  highest  development, 
from  the  downy  woodpecker,  say,  or  whether 
all  these  inferior  species  and  varieties  are  the 
result  of  degeneracy?  Neither  Darwin  nor 
Wallace  has  given  us  the  key  that  certainly 
unlocks  this  very  interesting  mystery. 

The  sap-drinking  woodpeckers  (Sphyropicus), 
of  which  there  are  three  or  four  varieties  in 
this  country,  appear  to  form  the  link  between 
the  fruit-eating  and  the  non-fruit-eating  species 
of  the  red-headed  family.  From  sipping  the 
sap  of  the  sugar-maple  to  testing  the  flavor  of 
a  cherry,  a  service-berry,  or  a  haw-apple,  is  a 
short  and  delightfully  natural  step.  How  logi- 
cal, too,  for  a  bird,  when  once  it  has  acquired 
the  fruit-eating  habit,  to  quit  delving  in  the 
hard  green  wood  for  a  nectar  so  much  inferior 
to  that  which  may  be  had  ready  bottled  in  the 
skins  of  apples,  grapes,  and  berries !  In  ac- 
cordance with  this  rule,  M.  erythrocephalus 
and  Centurus  carolinus,  though  great  tipplers, 
are  too  lazy  or  too  wise  to  bore  the  maples, 
preferring  to  sit  on  the  edge  of  a  sugar-trough, 
furtively  drinking  therefrom  leisurely  draughts 
of  the  saccharine  blood  of  the  ready-tapped 
trees.  I  have  seen  them  with  their  bills 
stained  purple  to  the  nostrils  with  the  rich 
juice  of  the  blackberry,  and  they  quarrel 


38  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

from  morning  till  night  over  the  ripest  June- 
apples  and  reddest  cherries,  their  noise  mak- 
ing a  Bedlam  of  the  fairest  country  orchard. 

The  woodpecker  family  is  scattered  widely 
in  our  country.  In  the  West  Canadian  woods 
one  meets,  besides  a  number  of  the  commoner 
species,  Lewis'  woodpecker,  a  large,  beautiful, 
and  rare  bird.  The  California  species  include 
the  Nuttall,  the  Harris,  the  Cape  St.  Lucas,  the 
white-headed,  and  several  other  varieties,  all 
showing  more  or  less  kinship  to  the  ivory-bill. 
Lewis's  woodpecker  shows  almost  entirely 
black,  its  plumage  giving  forth  a  strong  green- 
ish or  bluish  lustre.  The  red  on  its  head  is 
softened  down  to  a  fine  rose-carmine.  It  is 
a  wild,  wary  bird,  flying  high,  combining  in 
its  habits  the  traits  of  both  Hylotomus  pileatus 
and  Campephilus  principalis. 

In  concluding  this  paper  a  general  descrip- 
tion of  the  male  ivory-bill  may  prove  accept- 
able to  those  who  may  never  be  able  to  see 
even  a  stuffed  specimen  of  a  bird  which,  taken 
in  every  way,  is,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting 
and  beautiful  in  America.  In  size  21  inches 
long,  and  33  in  alar  extent ;  bill,  ivory  white, 
beautifully  fluted  above,  and  two  and  a-half 
inches  long;  head-tuft,  or  crest,  long  and 
fine,  of  pure  scarlet  faced  with  black.  Its 
body-color  is  glossy  blue-black,  but  down  its 
slender  neck  on  each  side,  running  from  the 
crest  to  the  back,  a  pure  white  stripe  contrasts 
vividly  with  the  scarlet  and  ebony.  A  mass 
of  white  runs  across  the  back  when  the  wings 
are  closed,  as  in  M.  erythrocephalus,  leaving  the 
wing-tips  and  tail  black.  Its  feet  are  ash- 
blue,  its  eyes  amber-yellow.  The  female  is 
like  the  male,  save  that  she  has  a  black  crest 


A  RED-HEADED  FAMILY.  39 

instead  of  the  scarlet.  I  can  think  of  nothing 
in  Nature  more  striking  than  the  flash  of  color 
this  bird  gives  to  the  dreary  swamp-landscape, 
as  it  careers  from  tree  to  tree,  or  sits  upon 
some  high  skeleton  cypress-branch  and  plies 
its  resounding  blows.  The  species  will  prob- 
ably be  extinct  within  a  few  years.* 

*  Since  writing  the  foregoing,  I  have  made  several  ex- 
cursions in  search  of  the  ivory-bill.  Early  in  January, 
1885,  I  killed  a  fine  male  specimen  in  a  swamp  near 
Bay  St.  Louis,  Mississippi ;  but  was  prevented,  by  an 
accident,  from  preserving  it  or  making  a  sketch  of  it. 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS. 
I. 

IN  the  season  of  nest-building,  which  is  also 
the  season  of  song-singing,  the  by-ways  of 
American  rural  districts  offer  many  attractions 
to  the  student  of  nature,  and  especially  to  the 
student  who  hopes  to  turn  his  discoveries  to 
account  in  any  field  of  art.  Of  mere  descrip- 
tive matter,  so  far  as  it  may  go  in  literature, 
and  of  mere  conventionalization,  so  far  as  dec- 
orative drawing  and  painting  are  concerned, 
the  most  that  was  ever  possible  has,  probably, 
already  been  done  ;  but  the  higher  forms  of  art, 
which  we  have  agreed  to  call  creative,  must 
get  the  germs  of  all  new  combinations  from 
the  suggestions  of  nature.  I  often  have 
thought  that  even  criticism  in  our  country 
would  have  more  virility  in  it  if  the  critics  had 
more  time  and  more  inclination  to  study  nature 
outside  of  cities  and  greenhouses.  How  can 
Wordsworth  be  studied  with  true  critical  in- 
sight by  one  who  but  vaguely  remembers  the 
outlines  of  the  woods  and  fields,  the  shady 
lanes,  and  the  fine  aerial  effects  of  hilly  land- 
scape ?  When  one  with  open  eyes  and  ears 
goes  out  into  the  unshorn  ways  of  nature  in  the 
creative  season — spring — the  fine  fervor  at 
work  in  birds,  and  trees,  and  plants,  in  the  air, 
the  earth,  and  the  water,  is  so  manifest  that 
one  cannot  doubt  that  some  subtle  element  of 
originality  is  easily  obtainable  therefrom  by  in- 
fection. Of  course  one  must  be  susceptible  to 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  41 

the  most  delicate  shades  of  influence  in  order 
to  get  the  values  of  nature.  Even  the  photo- 
graph is  to  be  caught  on  no  plate  save  the  most 
sensitive. 

The  other  day,  when  I  told  a  friend  that  I 
had  discovered  that  the  mocking-bird  never 
tries  to  imitate  the  cooing  of  a  dove,  he  said, 
"Why,  every  one  knew  that  long  ago." — 
"  Show  me  the  record,"  I  demanded  ;  but  he 
could  not.  "  Well,  what  good  can  come  of 
your  discovery,  even  if  you  are  entitled  to  the 
credit  ?  "  he  rather  triumphantly  asked.  I 
answered  that  the  fact  was  suggestive  ;  that  it 
had  an  artistic  value.  A  mournful,  desponding 
voice  is  never  attractive  to  a  vigorous,  healthy 
nature.  Cheerfulness  and  enthusiasm  are 
what  win  followers  for  birds  as  well  as  men. 
The  mocking-bird  is  a  genius  who  catches  from 
nature  all  its  available  notes,  and  combines 
them  so  as  to  express  the  last  possibility  of 
bird-song,  rejecting  the  moaning  of  the  dove 
and  the  thumping  notes  of  the  yellow-billed 
cuckoo,  just  as  the  true  poet  rejects  thoughts 
and  words  unworthy  of  his  lay. 

It  is  true  that,  as  the  times  go,  the  artist  is 
called  upon  to  please  a  vitiated  taste.  The 
poet  and  the  novelist  must  meet  the  demands 
of  the  schools  and  coteries.  The  precious 
hints  and  suggestions  caught  from  the  provin- 
cial lanes  and  wood-paths  are  not  considered 
favorable  by  the  metropolitan,  as  a  rule  ;  but 
out  of  these  must  grow,  as  the  plant  from  the 
seed,  the  living,  lasting  values  of  all  art.  City 
study  is  book  study,  through  which  the  truths 
and  beauties  of  nature  are  seen  at  a  distance, 
as  if  through  a  very  delusive  atmosphere.  To 
test  this  take  your  books  into  the  woods  of 


42  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

spring,  beside  a  brook,  and  see  how  many  of 
them  will  bear  reading  in  the  light  and  pres- 
ence of  nature.  How  tasteless  become  the 
polished  bits  of  conventional  art  when  we  at- 
tempt to  enjoy  them  in  the  open  air,  where  the 
violets  grow,  and  the  wild  vine  hangs  its  fes- 
toons ! 

There  is  another  test  of  the  force  and  vital- 
ity of  nature's  suggestions  known  to  every  ob- 
servant artist.  For  instance,  a  sketch  of  some 
out-door  scene,  made  on  the  spot,  will  appear 
to  have  scarcely  any  value  so  long  as  it  can  be 
readily  compared  with  the  original ;  but  no 
sooner  is  the  portfolio  opened  in  the  studio 
than  the  sketch  discloses,  in  a  marked  degree, 
many  of  the  subtlest  beauties  or  peculiarities 
of  the  living  scene.  How  different  in  the  case 
of  a  sketch  made  from  the  flat !  How  diluted 
the  power  of  nature  becomes ! 

I  was  once  enjoying  a  luncheon  with  a  gay 
sylvan  party,  when  the  earth  served  as  table 
and  a  sward  of  blue-grass  as  table-cloth.  A 
lady  who  gloried  in  her  collection  of  rare  hand- 
painted  china  was  serving  tea  to  us  in  cups 
worth  more  than  their  weight  in  gold ;  and  yet 
when  one  of  these  chanced  to  be  set  down  in 
the  midst  of  a  tuft  of  wild  violets  it  was  so 
dulled  by  contrast  with  the  living  blooms  that 
it  really  appeared  coarse  and  crude.  To  study 
nature  is  the  surest  way  to  a  knowledge  of 
what  art  ought  to  be.  Nature  is  the  standard. 
I  have  little  respect  for  the  judgment  of  the 
critic  who  measures  one  man's  work  by  that  of 
another.  The  main  question,  when  any  art- 
work is  to  be  critically  considered  should  be, 
Has  it  the  symmetry,  force,  and  vital  beauty 
of  nature  ? 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  43 

It  is  easy  to  write  about  nature  ;  but  to  write 
in  the  spirit  of  nature,  to  keep  within  the  limit 
of  her  rules,  is  not  so  easy.  So  to  copy  all  the 
salient  features  of  a  landscape  is  within  the 
power  of  any  painter,  but  how  few  can  get  their 
brushes  to  spill  upon  the  canvas  even  a  modi- 
cum of  what  we  all  may  see  in  the  sky,  and 
sea,  and  shore !  Greening  hedgerows,  and 
blooming  orchards,  the  songs  of  the  cat-bird 
and  brown  thrush,  always  have  something  new 
in  them.  We  never  see  or  hear  them  twice 
from  the  same  point  of  observation.  The 
brook's  voice  has  an  infinite  variety  of  tones. 
The  sunlight  and  the  cloud  shadows  are  con- 
tinually changing.  And  so  if  one  can  hoard 
up  the  impressions  made  by  the  thousand  pass- 
ing moods  of  spring,  they  will  prove  richly 
suggestive  when  reviewed  in  the  quiet  of  the 
study.  The  fine  mass  of  such  impressions  will 
be  found  a  fresh  and  fragrant  matrix,  enclosing 
the  perfect  crystals  of  original  thought.  If  it 
is  true  that  one  grows  like  what  one  contem- 
plates nothing  but  good  can  come  of  lonely 
rambles  with  nature,  and  especially  in  the  sea- 
son of  quickening  germs  and  tender  impulses. 
Those  who  assert  that  there  is  nothing  espe- 
cially picturesque  or  strikingly  interesting  in 
our  rural  scenery  seem  to  me  deficient  either 
in  judgment  or  in  the  power  of  observing 
closely.  The  fact  is,  it  is  hard  for  the  profes- 
sional artist  or  literary  man  to  cut  loose  from 
an  hereditary  old-country  taint.  The  far-away, 
the  dim,  the  old  in  literature  and  art  are 
shrouded  in  the  blue  enchantment  that  hovers 
so  tantalizingly  on  all  heights.  Standing  on 
one  mountain-top  we  look  to  another  longingly ; 
reclining  on  one  bank  of  a  river  we  dream  of 


44  B  Y-  IV A  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

the  joy  awaiting  us  on  the  other.  It  is,  in 
other  words,  apparently  almost  impossible  for 
Americans  to  fully  recognize  and  appreciate 
the  richness  of  "  local  color "  everywhere  of- 
fered at  home.  If  we  knew  our  country  as  well 
as  the  English  know  theirs  we  should  have  a 
stronger  vital  energy  in  our  literature  and  art. 
Of  course  we  lack  that  long  perspective  and  rich 
historical  atmosphere  belonging  to  old  coun- 
tries, but  as  a  natipn  we  are  just  at  that  age 
when  our  genius  should  find  its  note.  Our 
highways  are  reasonably  good,  our  lanes  and 
by-ways  are  inviting,  our  people  are  hospitable 
and  communicative.  There  is  no  good  reason 
why  some  tourists,  of  a  more  interesting  sort 
than  tax-gatherers  and  lightning-rod  peddlers, 
should  not  explore  the  pastoral  districts  where 
the  richest  materials  for  poetry,  romance,  and 
art  may  be  had  for  the  taking. 

Rummaging  the  remote  nooks  of  literature — 
the  pages  of  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  and  Izaak 
Walton  and  Roger  Ascham,  or  Frangois  Villon 
and  Marot  and  Ronsard,  is  very  pleasing  and 
profitable  ;  but  the  living,  budding,  redolent, 
and  resonant  by-ways  of  our  own  neighborhoods 
offer  a  richer  reward.  There  are  moments 
when  there  are  a  fragrance  and  savor,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  song  of  a  plough-boy  heard  across 
the  fresh-turned  fields.  One  pauses  by  the 
fence  or  hedge-row  to  enjoy  what  no  book  or 
picture  can  quite  give.  A  breath  of  perfume 
from  the  blooming  top  of  a  wild  crab-apple  tree, 
along  with  the  hum  of  the  bees  at  work  there, 
is  a  poem  much  older  than  any  ballade  or  trio- 
let, and  fresher  and  sweeter  than  any  song  of 
troubadour  or  any  idyl  of  Greek  lyrist.  What 
matters  it  whether  one  walks,  or  rides  a  tri- 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  45 

cycle,  or  spins  noiselessly  along  on  a  bicycle, 
so  that  one  keeps  one's  eyes  and  ears  open  ? 
If  the  body  is  to  be  refreshed  and  strengthened 
by  exercise,  why  not  also  take  pains  to  recreate 
the  mind  by  filling  the  memory  with  pungent 
and  healthful  data  ?  A  cool  draught  from  a 
country  way-side  spring,  where  the  calamus 
grows,  and  the  little  platoons  of  sky-blue  butter- 
flies arrange  the*nselves  on  the  damp  spots, 
might  well  inspire  an  ode  as  good  as  any  Ana- 
creon  ever  drew  from  the  purple  grape-juice. 
The  first  dragon-fly  of  the  season  is  always  a 
happy  discovery  for  me. 

I  know  where  Longfellow  got  the  sugges- 
tions for  his  Flower  de  Luce,  the  fresher  stanzas, 
at  least ;  for  the  dew  of  morning,  brushed  from 
brook-side  flags  and  meadow  weeds,  is  in  them. 
The  poem  is  bookish,  too,  showing  the  scholar 
a  little  too  plainly,  perhaps ;  but  it  serves  -to 
urge  a  current  of  out-door  air  over  one  as  one 
reads,  and  the  sound  of  the  mill-flume  is  in  the 
measure.  It  is  always  a  charming  junction 
where  ripe  scholarship  and  an  accurate  and 
loving  knowledge  of  nature  flow  together. 
From  that  point  onward  how  the  imagination 
is  enriched ! 

The  poems  of  Theocritus  and  the  song  of 
the  cardinal-bird  are  blended  together,  and 
something  new  comes  of  the  mixture.  I  like  to 
follow  through  a  racy  poem  or  essay  some  elu- 
sive, fascinating  trace  of  the  author's  recipe. 
It  is  never  quite  hidden. 

The  impetus  given  to  out-door  rambling  by 
the  advent  of  cycling  must,  it  seems  to  me, 
bring  some  fresh  elements  into  American 
thought.  It  will,  unless  we  allow  the  love  of 
mere  whirling  to  shut  out  everything  else.  I 


46  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

have  found  a  tricycle  the  most  helpful  and  en- 
joyable thing  in  exploring  the  by-ways  and 
high-ways  of  my  neighborhood.  It  has  helped 
me  to  see  things  that  I  might  not  have  discov- 
ered had  I  been  on  foot,  and  it  has  awakened 
sensations  never  before  experienced  by  me. 
The  mere  joy  in  self-propulsion  seems  to 
sharpen  one's  vision,  and  strengthen  one's  re- 
ceptive faculties.  I  like  to  stop  and  sit  in  the 
saddle,  and  peep  between  the  rails  of  a  fence, 
letting  my  eyes  follow  the  fresh  green  rows  of 
young  Indian  corn  that  reach  far  across  the 
level  field  of  dark  loam.  From  the  same  po- 
sition I  can  make  such  notes  and  sketches  as 
will  be  of  use  to  me  in  the  future.  Charming 
physical  exercise  and  pleasing  study  combined 
make  up  about  the  most  desirable  of  all  com- 
pounds. When  I  am  tired  of  pedalling  I  can 
stop  in  the  shade  of  a  way-side  tree  and  draw 
forth  a  book  to  read,  or  I  can  watch  the  effect 
of  cloud-shadows  and  wind-flaws  on  the  rank 
green  wheat.  Meadow-larks  and  blue-birds 
preen  themselves  on  the  fence-stakes,  field- 
sparrows  sing  in  the  young  oats,  yonder  or- 
chard rings  with  the  medley  of  the  cat-bird. 
Here  is  a  good  place  to  test  the  qualities  of  a 
book  as  an  out-door  companion.  One  can  find 
out  how  its  pages  will  accord  with  certain 
phases  of  nature,  so  to  speak.  Ten  to  one  what 
had  seemed  quite  perfect,  read  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  library,  will  fall  off  to  a  mere  skel- 
eton in  the  open  air.  I  have  found  that, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  poems  of  Burns 
lose  something  by  out-door  reading,  whilst  cer 
tain  passages  of  Tennyson,  Browning,  and 
Emerson  reach  out  and  gather  an  increment  of 
freshness  from  pastoral  surroundings.  The 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  47 

humorists,  as  a  rule,  require  to  be  read  within 
the  limitations  of  four  walls.  Nature  is  always 
in  earnest. 

A  novel  that  will  bear  the  sunlight  and  the 
winds  and  the  bird-songs  may  be  put  down  as 
a  thoroughly  good  one.  Short,  crisp  stories, 
not  too  tragic,  having  strong  local  color  and 
bright  conversations,  stand  this  test  very  well. 
Our  magazines  often  fall  into  the  error  of 
printing,  during  the  out-door  season,  light 
society  stories  of  city  life ;  these  fade  into  col- 
orless and  tasteless  films  when  read  on  the 
beach,  or  in  the  open  country.  I  sometimes 
read  French  novels  out-of-doors,  merely  for  the 
antiseptic  effect  that  the  sun  and  air  have  on 
the  offensive  passages  ;  but  at  best  I  often  find 
myself  glad  that  American  birds  and  flowers  do 
not  understand  French. 

We  Americans  are  too  fast  with  whatever 
we  undertake.  Our  horses  must  trot  "  below 
fifteen,"  our  yachts  must  go  like  a  hurricane  ; 
and  when  we  ride  bicycles  or  tricycles  we  must 
run  a  hundred  miles  in  the  shortest  possible 
space  of  time.  Now,  a  tourist  who  hopes  to  see 
anything  or  hear  anything  worth  remembering 
must  go  slowly  over  his  ground,  with  many 
stops  and  with  all  sorts  of  detours.  One  never 
can  foreknow  what  odd  and  interesting  things 
may  be  discovered  tucked  away  in  unfre- 
quented nooks.  I  have  experienced  many 
pleasing  surprises  in  the  way  of  valuable 
information  drawn  from  most  unpromising 
sources.  Such  rich  dialect  phrases,  too,  and 
such  rare,  quaint  traits  of  character,  disclose 
themselves !  How  marvellously  weatherwise 
some  of  the  country  folk  are,  and  what  keen 
observers  of  nature  !  On  the  other  hand,  they 


48  BY-WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

have  such  queer  "  notions "  about  signs  and 
omens.  For  instance,  the  well-known  guttural 
croaking  of  the  yellow-billed  cuckoo  is,  in  the 
West  and  South  generally  believed  to  presage 
rain ;  hence  the  bird  is  known  amongst  the 
rural  people  by  the  name  of  rain-crow. 

I  remember  with  what  solemn  earnestness 
an  old  man  once  heaped  maledictions  on  a 
cuckoo.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  a  distressing 
drought,  and  the  bird  was  mournfully  uttering 
its  notes  in  an  orchard.  "There's  thet  air 
dad-blasted  rain  crow  a-bellerin'  down  ther' 
ag'in"  he  cried,  savagely  wagging  his  head. 
"  Ef  I  hed  a  gun  I'd  blow  it  inter  thunder  V 
gone.  Ever'thin'  a-burnin'  up  an'  the  crick  a- 
goin'  dry  an'  thet  air  lyin'  rain-crow  jest 
a-yowkin'  an'  yowkin',  es  ef  a  flood  wer'  a- 
comin'  in  less  an'  fifteen  minutes — blast  its 
pictur' !  " 

Speaking  of  the  yellow-billed  cuckoo,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  interesting  of  our  American 
birds, —  a  late  comer  to  our  Northern  woods, 
where  about  the  middle  of  May  it  begins  a 
shy,  shadowy  pilgrimage  from  tree  to  tree, 
peering  furtively  among  the  tufts  of  young 
leaves,  as  if  bent  on  some  errand  of  mystery. 
It  is  a  slender,  graceful  figure,  with  a  dispro- 
portionately long  tail  and  a  slim,  slightly  curved 
bill,  which  is  almost  black  above  and  yellow 
below ;  its  back  is  drab  ;  its  under  parts  a  pure 
silvery-white,  and  its  tail  dark,  tipped  with 
snow-white.  You  may  know  it  by  its  peculiar 
zigzag  flight,  and  by  its  cry,  "  Kaow,  Kaow" 
etc.,  repeated  slowly  at  first,  then  increasing  in 
rapidity  to  a  rattling  or  pounding  croak,  and 
finally  ending  laggingly  as  it  began.  It  has  all 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  49 

the   most   interesting   habits   of   the    English 
cuckoo. 

I  am  aware  that  naturalists  have  stoutly 
claimed  that  our  yellow-bill  never  lays  its  eggs 
in  other  birds'  nests  ,  but  I  have  the  evidence 
of  my  own  eyes  to  the  contrary.  I  was  plying 
a  country  lad  with  questions  touching  the  birds 
and  nests  of  his  neighborhood,  when  he  in- 
formed me  that  a  robin  and  a  rain-crow  had  a 
nest  "  in  cahoot  "  *  in  an  apple-tree  just  across 
a  lane  from  where  we  stood.  Of  course  I  was 
anxious  to  see  that  nest  at  once.  It  was  built 
in  the  usual  robin  fashion,  stacked  up  in  a  low 
crotch  of  the  tree,  and  contained  three  robin 
eggs  and  one  cuckoo  egg.  This  was  a  num- 
ber of  years  ago.;  but  so  late  as  the  spring  of 
1883  I  found  a  cuckoo's  egg  in  the  nest  of  a 
blue-jay.  In  the  mountain  region  of  North 
Georgia,  where  the  yellow-bill  nests  among  the 
haw  thickets,  I  have  seen  it  carrying  its  egg  in 
its  mouth,  no  doubt  with  the  purpose  of  deposit- 
ing it  in  the  care  of  some  other  bird.  Wher- 
ever I  have  gone  I  have  heard  this  cuckoo 
charged  with  eating  the  eggs  of  other  birds ; 
but  I  believe  the  charge  has  no  better  founda- 
tion than  the  mistake  of  observers,  who,  seeing 
it  with  its  own  egg  in  its  mouth,  naturally  sup- 
pose that  it  has  been  robbing  some  neighbor- 
bird's  nest.  My  opinion  is,  that  by  the  time 
our  country  shall  have  reached  the  age  of  the 
England  of  to-day  our  cuckoos  will  have  be- 
come confirmed  in  all  the  habits  of  the  Euro- 
pean species.  At  best  the  bird  is  very  indif- 
ferent to  nest-building,  and  its  natural  bent  is 
towards  entirely  evading  the  reponsibility. 

*  "  In  cahoot "  is  a  common  Western  and  Southern 
phrase  for  in  partnership. 
4 


So  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

Its  architectural  powers  are  of  the  poorest. 
No  other  of  our  arboreal  birds,  not  even  the 
common  dove,  builds  so  crazy  and  insecure  a 
home.  But  I  am  getting  into  rather  deep  or- 
nithological mire.  It  is  so  easy  to  find  room 
for  digression  when  one  gets  out-of-doors ! 
Everything  is  suggestive.  To  the  vision  of  a 
careful  observer  and  student  each  object  in  na- 
ture has  an  interrogation-point  beside  it.  With 
pencil  and  note-book  let  us  catalogue  these 
suggestions  and  interrogations,  and  lay  them 
aside  for  future  use.  When,  some  day,  we 
come  to  look  them  over  we  shall  be  surprised 
how  perfectly — like  dried  roots  and  plants — 
they  have  kept  their  out-door  fragrance  and 
taste. 

II. 

In  studying  the  birds  most  usually  met  with 
on  out-door  excursions  I  have  found  it  very  in- 
teresting to  make  notes  of  certain  striking  evi- 
dences of  a  special  harmonic  relation  between 
their  movements,  colors,  and  attitudes,  and 
the  peculiarities  of  their  natural  surroundings. 

Ornithologists  have  over  and  over  again 
rung  the  changes  on  the  ease  with  which  the 
quail,  the  grouse,  and  the  hare  make  them- 
selves next  to  invisible  to  the  human  eye,  and 
to  the  piercing  vision  of  birds  o"f  prey  as  well ; 
but  there  are  many  curious  details  connected 
with  this  subject  of  a  natural  harmony  of  mo- 
tion and  color,  regarding  birds  and  their  envi- 
ronments, which  I  have  never  seen  in  print. 
Of  course,  since  the  quail,  the  hare,  and  the 
grouse  have  been  for  so  long  the  objects  of 
desire  of  sportsmen,  pot-hunters,  and  epicures, 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  51 

as  well  as  of  careful  study  by  naturalists,  their 
peculiarities  have  all  been  catalogued,  and 
every  intelligent  person  knows  that  a  hare,  by 
crouching  flat  on  a  dry  gray  spot  of  earth,  so 
blends  with  its  surroundings  as  to  become 
almost  undistinguishable,  and  that  a  quail,  sit- 
ting in  a  handful  of  dry  brown  leaves  is  as 
effectually  hidden  as  if  buried.  So  a  grouse 
among  the  tangled  twigs  of  a  bare  winter  tree 
is  a  very  difficult  object  to  discover.  A  mead- 
ow-lark, in  a  sunny  clover-field,  melts,  so  to 
speak,  into  the  general  confusion  of  brown, 
green,  and  gold,  so  that  it  becomes  indeed  a 
"  sightless  song."  The  humming-bird  makes 
its  nest  of  lichen,  and  places  it  in  a  tuft  of  the 
same  on  some  wrinkled  bough,  usually  at  or 
near  a  crotch  ;  and  the  little  bird,  while  on  the 
nest,  is  so  in  harmony  with  its  surroundings 
that  none  but  the  keenest  eye  would  distin- 
guish her  from  one  of  the  little  ruffled  knots 
on  the  bark  beside  her.  The  whippoorwill 
builds  no  nest.  Its  eggs  are  deposited-on  the 
ground  at  a  place  where  the  bird's  colors  and 
those  of  her  eggs  perfectly  harmonize  with  the 
general  tone  of  their  surroundings.  I  have 
known  this  bird  to  roll  her  eggs  from  spot  to 
spot  while  incubating,  evidently  for  the  pur- 
pose of  keeping  them  and  herself  within  a 
proper  entourage,  this  being  her  only  means  of 
protection  from  hawks,  owls,  and  other  ene- 
mies. The  common  dove  places  its  shallow, 
ill-made  nest  in  what  appear  to  be  the  most 
exposed  places,  but  the  bluish  ash-gray  color 
of  the  bird's  plumage  runs  so  evenly  into  the 
tone  of  its  surroundings  that  one  might  look 
in  vain  for  any  sign  of  a  living  thing  in  the 


52  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

midst  of  that  apparently  flat  wash  of  drab  neu- 
tral. 

That  hawks  and  owls  have  powerful  and 
far-seeing  eyes  cannot  be  doubted  ;  but  they 
either  lack  a  fine  power  of  discrimination  in 
vision,  or  this  adaptation  of  the  colors  and 
markings  of  birds  to  their  surroundings  is 
very  effectual,  else  these  birds  of  prey  exhibit 
a  wonderful  forbearance  toward  their  natural 
victims  during  the  season  of  incubation.  I 
am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  hawks  are 
what  might  be  called  "far-sighted,"  and  that 
their  vision  at  very  short  distances  is  not  very 
clear.  I  once  saw  a  goshawk  pursuing  a 
downy  woodpecker,  when  the  latter  darted 
through  a  tuft  of  foliage  and  flattened  itself 
close  upon  the  body  of  a  thick  oak  bough, 
where  it  remained  as  motionless  as  the  bark 
itself.  The  hawk  alighted  on  the  same  bough 
within  two  feet  of  its  intended  victim,  and  re- 
mained sitting  there  for  some  minutes,  evi- 
dently looking  in  vain  for  it,  with  nothing  but 
thin  air  between  monster  and  morsel.  The 
woodpecker  was  stretched  longitudinally  on 
the  bough,  its  tail  and  beak  close  to  the  bark, 
its  black  and  white  speckled  feathers  looking 
like  a  continuation  of  the  wrinkles  and  lichen. 
No  doubt  those  were  moments  of  awful  sus- 
pense for  the  little- fellow;  but  its  ruse  suc- 
ceeded, and  the  hawk  flew  away  to  try  some 
other  tidbit.  If  the  woodpecker  had  stopped 
amongst  the  green  leaves,  the  hawk  would 
have  discovered  it  instantly. 

I  have  noticed  that  the  cardinal-grosbeak  and 
the  blue-jay  are  more  often  killed  by  hawks 
than  are  the  other  common  birds  of  our  woods ; 
and  I  attribute  the  fact  to  their  brilliant  plu- 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS  53 

mage.  The  blue-jays  are  aware  of  their  dan- 
ger, and  resort  to  mob-law  whenever  a  hawk  or 
owl  is  discovered.  I  have  seen  a  hundred 
blue-jays  bonded  together  and  worrying  one 
little  screech-owl.  The  grosbeaks  protect 
themselves  as  best  they  can  by  keeping  well 
within  thickets  and  thorny  close-topped  trees. 

Along  our  rivers  and  brooks  live  a  great 
many  aquatic  and  semi-aquatic  birds,  whose 
traits  and  peculiar  characteristics  seem  not  to 
have  been  very  closely  noted  by  our  natural- 
ists. 

I  have  mentioned  the  motions  and  attitudes 
of  birds  as  partaking  of  the  general  tone  of 
their  surroundings.  This  is  particularly  ob- 
servable in  the  herons,  sand-pipers,  plovers, 
bitterns,  and  many  shore  birds.  The  motion- 
less, dreamy  appearance  of  the  heron  as  it 
stands  in  the  edge  of  a  still  gray  pool  of  water 
is  in  perfect  keeping  with  all  the  features  and  ac- 
cessories of  a  tarn.  So  the  wavering,  tilting 
motion  of  the  little  sand-pipers  accords  harmo- 
niously with  the  rippling  surface  of  running 
water.  So  accentuated  is  this  light  see-saw 
movement  of  one  of  the  lesser  sand-pipers, 
that  the  bird  is  called  "teeter-snipe"  by  the  coun- 
try folk.  The  kill-deer  plover,  common  in  our 
damp  meadows  and  fallow  lands,  has  a  way  of 
running  in  the  low  grass  and  stubble  that  ren- 
ders it  very  hard  to  follow  with  the  eye,  and, 
when  it  stops,  its  outlines  are  so  shadowy  and 
so  intimately  blent  with  the  gray-brown  back- 
ground that  one  has  to  look  sharply  to  dis- 
cover it.  The  little  green  heron  of  our  brooks 
and  rivulets  has  a  habit  of  sitting  on  old  heaps 
of  drift-wood,  where  he  looks  for  all  the  world 
like  an  upright  stick  or  piece  of  bark.  When 


54  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

standing  in  the  water  his  colors  shade  off  into 
the  greenish  wash  of  the  stream,  and  you  rarely 
see  him,  no  matter  how  near  him  you  may  be, 
before  he  springs  into  the  air,  and  is  away.  I 
once  shot  a  fine  specimen  as  it  flew  past  me, 
and  it  fell  among  some  stones  at  a  brook's 
edge.  Something  attracted  my  eyes  from  the 
spot  where  it  fell,  and  when  I  turned  again  to 
look  for  my  bird  I  could  not  see  it.  I  walked 
round  and  round.  I  knew  it  had  fallen  quite 
dead  ;  but  what  had  become  of  it  ?  In  fact  it 
lay  there  in  plain  view  under  my  eyes ;  but  its 
colors  were  so  uniform  with  those  of  the 
smooth,  water-washed  stones,  amongst  which 
it  had  fallen,  that  I  was  full  five  minutes  dis- 
covering it.  Every  sportsman  has  experienced 
similar  difficulty  in  looking  for  snipe  and  wood- 
cock after  bringing  them  down. 

The  kingfisher's  colors  are,  no  doubt,  of 
great  advantage  to  him  in  taking  his  prey  from 
the  water.  If  he  were  red,  instead  of  being 
dashed  over  with  all  the  blue  and  purple  and 
silver-gray,  and  liquid  shadows  of  the  brook 
itself,  he  would  not  catch  many  fish.  How 
hard  it  must  be  for  the  minnows,  as  they  dis- 
port in  the  dancing  current,  to  see,  through  the 
trembling  medium,  the  sky-blue  and  silvery 
markings  of  the  bird  sitting  on  a  swaying 
branch  between  them  and  the  sky !  And  how 
easy  it  would  be  for  the  kingfisher  to  get  all 
the  food  he  might  desire  if  those  little  fish  were 
less  of  the  color  of  the  water  in  which  they 
swim.  If  quails  were  scarlet  instead  of  mottled 
brown,  how  soon  the  hawks  would  exterminate 
them  ! 

But  there  is  another  side  to  this  subject  of 
which  the  poet  and  artist  must  take  careful 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS. 


55 


note.  Nature's  tone  is  rarely  loud,  rarely  over- 
accentuated.  The  blue-jay  in  the  orchard, 
the  cat-bird  in  the  hedgerow,  the  kingfisher  by 
the  brook,  each  is  a  key  to  a  harmony.  Na- 
ture, on  the  whole,  suggests  under-statement 
and  a  reserve  of  color.  Her  contrasts  are  not 
of  the  Rembrandt  type;  her  expressions  do 
not  abound  in  adjectives.  Gay,  flaunting  flow- 
ers and  gorgeous  birds  are  rare  save  in  green- 
houses and  cages.  The  suppressed  power  felt 
in  the  solemn  stillness  of  great  woods  is  sug- 
gestive of  that  force  which  some  men  of  few 
words  bear  about  with  them. 

I  saw  a  simple  picture  of  Nature's  painting 
once,  which  has  returned  to  my  memory  again 
and  again,  and  if  it  could  be  put  on  a  canvas 
or  fastened  in  a  poem  it  would  forever  remain 
a  masterpiece  of  art.  And  yet  it  was  nothing 
but  a  green  heron  standing  in  the  swift  shallow 
current  of  a  brook  with  the  diamond-bright 
wavelets  breaking  around  its  slender  legs  and 
a  tuft  of  water-grass  trembling  beside  it.  I 
was  lying  idly  enough,  at  full  length  on  the 
brook's  bank,  so  that  beyond  the  bird,  as  I 
gazed,  opened  a  fairy-like  landscape,  over 
which  a  gentle  breeze  was  blowing  with  an 
effect  wholly  indescribable,  shaking  tall  flags 
and  tossing  the  dragon-flies  about  in  the  sun- 
shine. The  whole  effect  was  cooling  and  tran- 
quillizing, with  a  subtle  hint  in  it  of  a  land 
somewhere  just  out  of  reach  where  one  might 
dream  the  lotos-dream  forever. 

Now,  a  good  artist  might  have  easily  painted 
the  little  scene  so  far  as  painting  usually  goes ; 
but  it  would  have  required  such  genius  as  is 
yet  to  be  born  to  imprison  in  the  sketch  the 
hint  of  what  seemed  to  lie  just  beyond  the 


56  B  Y-  WA  YS  A  ND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

dreamy  horizon.  None  but  the  most  master- 
ful genius  would  have  been  able  to  keep  up  to 
the  sweet,  quiet  key  of  the  coloring,  and  yet  be 
satisfied  with  the  tender,  wavering  outlines  and 
the  soft,  transparent  shadows.  The  liquid 
tones  of  sound  and  color  in  the  brook  came  so 
harmoniously  to  my  senses,  along  with  the 
motion  of  swaying  flags  and  bubble-beaded 
waves,  that  the  graceful  bird,  seen  through 
half  closed  eyes,  appeared  to  be  a  half-fanciful 
embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  calm  delight,  knee- 
deep  in  some  tide  of  enchantment  or  romance. 
(Looking  back  over  this  last  sentence  I  recog- 
nize its  weakness,  but  must  wilfully  let  it  go, 
for  it  comes  very  near  expressing  one  phase  of 
the  view.)  Nature  is  rarely  either  flamboyant 
or  grisatre,  but  keeps  well  the  golden  mean. 
But,  to  return  to  the  motions  of  birds,  how 
perfectly  in  keeping  with  the  broad  expanse  of 
sky  and  the  movements  of  the  clouds  is  the 
sailing  of  the  great-winged  hawks  and  vultures  ! 
I  have  watched  the  swallow-tailed  hawks  of 
the  South  sailing  so  high  that  they  appeared  to 
be  sliding  against  the  sky.  No  labored  move- 
ments there ;  those  wings  were  far  above  the 
difficulties  that  beset  our  earth,  and  were 
spread  on  heavenly  tides.  Even  the  obscene 
turkey-buzzard,  when  it  has  reached  a  great 
altitude,  and  is  moving  so  smoothly  and 
dreamily  between  us  and  the  empyrean,  be- 
comes an  object  of  respect ;  we  forget  its  vul- 
garity, as  we  do  that  of  men  who  have  mounted 
on  the  wings  of  genius,  bearing  their  depravi- 
ties into  the  rare  atmosphere  of  exalted  art. 
The  albatross,  that  prince  of  the  sea-winds, 
seems  a  part  of  the  fleece-clouds  and  the  sky. 
The  flamingoes,  the  pelicans,  the  gulls — all 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  57 

the  wild  sea-fowl  and  shore-birds  have  some- 
thing of  the  ocean-swell  and  the  surf-ripple  in 
their  flight.  I  believe  it  is  Dr.  Holmes  who 
speaks  of  the 

"  Oriole  floating  like  a  flake  of  fire," 

but,  true  as  the  comparison  is,  the  oriole,  with 
its  sunshine  and  shadows,  harmonizes  perfectly 
with  the  fresh  greens  and  yellows  of  the  young 
spring  leaves  and  tassels.  How  many  of  our 
fly-catchers,  finches,  and  warblers  have  a  dash 
of  sap  green  and  pale  leaf-yellow,  as  if  Nature 
had  purposely  meant  them  for  a  part  of  her 
general  spring  scheme  of  color !  Even  the 
bull-frog  has  the  same  marking  as  the  tuft  of 
water-grass  in  which  he  sits  ready  for  his  head- 
long plunge  into  the  pool.  Need  I  remind  the 
experienced  sportsman  of  the  fact  that  a  wood- 
duck  among  the  broad  leaves  and  snowy 
blooms  of  the  water-lily  is  a  thing  almost  im- 
possible to  see  although  in  plain  view  ?  The 
beautiful  bird's  white  and  gray  and  purplish 
markings  blend  easily  with  the  water-gleams, 
and  leaf-shimmer,  and  pure  white  flower-clus- 
ters. 

The  herons  and  kingfishers  have  for  ages 
set  an  example  that  anglers  have  not  had  the 
wit  to  follow.  White  and  pale  blue  are  the 
water  high-lights  as  seen  from  under  the  surf  ace 
of  the  water.  A  white  coat,  with  misty,  dark- 
gray  wading-boots,  would  be  nearly  the  snowy- 
heron's  fishing  outfit  for  still,  murky  water. 
Why  ?  Because  the  legs  must  be  in  the  water 
and  the  coat  above  water.  So  the  great  blue- 
heron  has  dark  gray-brown  legs,  and  all  its 
under  parts  are  overlaid  with  fine  narrow 
feathers  of  silvery  white.  But  the  kingfisher, 


58  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

whose  prey  is  taken  from  clear,  moving  water — 
are  peculiarly  marked  underneath.  On  his 
breast,  next  to  his  white  necklace,  is  a  band  of 
pale  blue,  touched  here  and  there  with  light- 
brown,  and  below  this  to  his  tail  he  is  white. 
Now,  a  fish  looking  up  through  the  water  has 
the  kingfisher  between  him  and  the  sky. 
Those  sky-blue  and  silver-white  feathers  cor- 
respond exactly  with  the  water-light  and  sky- 
light as  they  are  broken  up  and  blended  to- 
gether by  the  tiny  chopping  waves.  When  the 
kingfisher  makes  a  harpoon  of  itself,  and,  beak 
downward,  darts  from  its  perch  above  the 
water  to  fall  upon  a  fish,  it  presents  two  par- 
allel curved  lines,  one  of  which  is  mainly 
bright  blue,  the  other  mostly  pure  white  ;  these 
seen  through  moving  water  blend  into  a  soft 
mist-gray,  perfectly  in  tone  with  the  prevailing 
tint  of  most  brook-water. 

In  connection  with  observations  on  the  mo- 
tions of  birds  it  is  well  to  recall  the  fact  that 
nearly  all  the  night-birds  fly  on  wings  that 
make  no  sound.  An  owl  slips  through  the  air 
with  the  utter  silence  of  a  shadow.  This  ac- 
cords with  the  stillness  of  the  night.  It  also 
serves  the  bird  a  good  turn,  for  the  least  noise 
would  startle  his  prey  at  a  time  when  all  nature 
is  hushed  and  breathless.  I  have  observed, 
as  has  every  nature-student,  I  suppose,  that 
nearly,  if  not  quite  all,  the  night  insects  are 
comparatively  noiseless  in  their  flight.  The 
giant  moth  does  not  hum  like  a  bumble-bee  or 
a  humming-bird.  The  mosquito  is  the  noisiest 
with  his  wings  of  all  the  night-flyers.  But  I 
must  not  get  over  the  line  from  birds  to  in- 
sects, while  on  this  subject  of  harmony,  for  a 
study  of  butterflies  alone  would  fill  more  space 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  59 

than  I  have  for  this  paper.  In  tropical  and 
semi-tropical  countries  a  curious  resemblance 
in  color  and  shape  exists  between  the  butter- 
flies and  the  flowers  they  haunt,  a  resemblance 
quite  noticeable  as  far  north  as  the  fortieth 
degree  of  latitude. 

III. 

How  would  "  Tricycles  and  Triolets"  do  for 
an  alliterative  heading  to  a  light  chapter  on 
out-door  poetry  ?  Ever  since  I  began  to  taste 
Virgil  in  my  school-days  I  have  had  a  special 
liking  for  verse  smacking  of  the  woods  and 
fields,  the  birds,  the  sunshine,  and  the  brooks. 
A  certain  passage  in  the  ^Eneid  comes  into  my 
mind  now,  a  strong  sketch  of  a  grove  of  trees, 
with  the  light  playing  through  the  swaying 
foliage  with  that  strangely  brilliant  effect  so 
often  observed  on  bright  days  in  spring  and 
summer : — 

— "Turn  silvis  scena  coruscis 
Desuper,  horrentique  atrum  nemus  imminet  umbra." 

I  do  not  think  that  William  Morris  has  quite 
done  justice  to  this  beautiful  Virgilian  bit  of 
landscape  in  his  rhymed  translation.  Here  is 
his  rendering : — 

— "  Lo !  the  flickering  wood  above 
And  wavering  shadow  cast  adown  by  darksome  hang- 
ing grove." 

"  Flickering  wood  "  is  not  of  subtle  signifi- 
cance enough  to  suggest  what  is  somehow  con- 
veyed by  the  original  phrase.  I  have  seen  the 
sunlight  and  a  breeze  playing  at  once  through 
the  bright-green  top  of  a  tall  tree  when  the 
sudden  thrills,  so  to  speak,  of  golden  fire,  leap- 


60  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NOTES. 

ing  among  the  swaying  foliage,  were  like 
flashes  of  rare  thought  shot  swiftly  through 
the  brain  of  some  grand  genius. 

Although  I  have  hinted  at  the  triolet,  I  shall 
not  speak  of  that,  or  indeed  of  any  other 
purely  conventional  form  of  verse,  saving  the 
mere  observation  that  nothing  of  the  kind, 
from  the  sonnet  to  the  rondel,  is  suited  to  the 
freshness  and  freedom  of  out-door  life.  The 
over-racy  honey  of  the  bumble-bee,  little  suited 
as  it  is  to  the  table  of  the  epicure,  has  such 
flavor  as  ought  to  mark  the  songs  of  the  sylvan 
poet.  I  am  in  hopes  that  in  our  country  a 
school  of  young  singers  will  soon  appear, 
widely  different  from  that  now  forming  in  Eng- 
land, and  also  unlike  the  jeune  hole  of  France. 
Why  should  we  as  a  people  foster,  or  even 
countenance,  forms  of  poetical  affectation 
worn  out  and  flung  aside  by  the  Old  World 
some  hundreds  of  years  ago  ? 

Our  venerable  Walt  Whitman  may  have 
pushed  at  times  too  far  in  the  other  direction, 
but  he  has  caught  the  spirit  of  freedom  and 
has  dashed  his  unkempt  songs  with  a  dew  as 
American  as  that  of  Helicon  was  Greek.  It  is 
a  broad,  out-door  sense  in  which  one  enjoys 
some  of  his  breezy  verses  : — 

"  I  think  I  have  blown  with  you,  O  winds  ; 
O  waters,  I  have  fingered  every  shore  with  you." 

It  is  indeed  a  pleasing  thing  to  idly  blow 
with  the  wind,  or  to  blow  with  the  wind  for  a 
purpose  ;  and  what  is  more  recreating  than  to 
finger  sweet  shores  with  the  water  ?  A  canoe, 
if  but  a  pirogue,  and  a  shore  to  finger,  if  only 
the  bank  of  a  rivulet,  can  give  delight  of  no 
uncertain  sort  to  a  healthv  soul. 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  61 

A  Western  poet,  Ben  Parker,  has  embodied 
in  a  simple  stanza  a  good  idea  of  that  freshness 
which  lingers  in  the  memory  after  one  has  been 
driven  by  the  pressure  of  worldly  cares  out  of 
the  redolent  ways  of  nature  : — 

"  O  morning  when  the  days  are  long, 

And  youth  and  innocence  are  wed, 
And  every  grove  is  full  of  song, 

And  every  pathway  void  of  dread ; 
Who  rightly  sings  its  rightful  praise, 

Or  rightly  dreams  it  o'er  again, 
When  cold  and  narrow  are  the  days, 

And  shrunken  all  the  hopes  of  men  — 
He  shall  re-waken  with  his  song 
The  morning  when  the  days  were  long." 

The  old  English  poet,  Sir  Richard  Fanshawe, 
took  a  gloomier  view  : — 

"  Let  us  use  it  while  we  may 
Snatch  those  joys  that  haste  away  I 
Earth  her  winter  coat  may  cast 
And  renew  her  beauty  past : 
But,  our  winter  come  in  vain, 
We  solicit  spring  again ; 
And  when  our  furrows  snow  shall  cover 
Love  may  return,  but  never  lover." 

There  was  a  philosopher  for  you  ;  but  here 
comes  one  of  our  young  American  poets  with 
a  fancy  that  finds  pretty  and  apt  comparisons 
wherever  it  skips.  Sings  Edgar  Fawcett : — 

"  If  trees  are  Nature's  thoughts  or  dreams, 

And  witness  how  her  great  heart  yearns, 
Then  she  has  only  shown,  it  seems, 
Her  lightest  fantasies  in  ferns." 

It  is  quite  surprising,  when  one  comes  to 
look,  how  chary  our  later  poets  are  of  using 
the  dew  for  dampening  their  materials  ;  they 
seem  to  prefer  lamp-oil.  It  may  be,  after  all, 


62  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD- NO TES. 

that  lamp-oil  is  the  better  medium,  but  just 
now  I  am  writing  from  the  saddle  of  a  tricycle 
with  the  spell  of  all  out-doors  upon  me. 

How  precious  is  the  pleasure  now-a-days  of 
coming  upon  a  really  good  stanza  of  verse,  one 
that  breaks  ©pen,  so  to  speak,  like  a  fragrant 
bud,  and  distils  into  one's  mind  the  quintes- 
sence of  genuine  originality !  I  do  not  speak 
of  such  originality  as  Poe's  or  Baudelaire's  or 
Rossetti's,  but  such  as  Swinburne  has  shown 
in  a  choice  few  of  his  simpler  lyrics,  where  he 
has  forgotten  himself;  for  Swinburne  is  a 
master  when  French  and  Greek  influences  do 
not  master  him.  His  music  is  haunting,  and 
there  are,  scattered  through  his  poems,  pic- 
tures sketched  from  nature  with  a  hand  as  free 
and  firm  as  Shakespeare's  : — 

"  Where  tides  of  grass  break  into  foam  of  flowers, 
Or  where  the  wind's  feet  shine  along  the  sea." 

It  is  not  hard  to  find  good  out-door  poetry  if 
we  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  English  verse. 
Chaucer,  with  the  language  fresh  in  his  hands, 
so  to  speak,  coined  his  phrases  with  a  pen 
dipped  in  dew.  See  how  he  begins  his  pro- 
logue : — 

"  When  that  Aprille  with  his  schowres  swoote 

The  drought  of  Marche  hath  perced  to  the  roote, 
And  bathed  every  veyne  in  swich  licour, 
Of  which  vertue  engendred  is  the  flour." 

From  Chaucer's  day  down  to  this  no  poet, 
save  Chaucer  himself,  has  written  four  lines  so 
full  of  the  subtle  flavor  of  Spring  as  these.  I 
must  add  another  stanza  : — 

"  And  the  river  that  I  sat  upon, 
It  made  such  a  noise  as  it  ron, 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  63 

Accordant  with  the  birdes  armony, 

Methought  it  was  the  best  melody 
That  might  ben  yheard  of  any  mon." 

Indeed,  Chaucer  is  one  of  the  few  poets  who 
are  good  companions  in  the  open  air.  It  is 
like  a  luncheon  of  fruit  and  nuts  and  choice 
old  wine — reading  the  "  Canterbury  Tales  " 
under  a  plane-tree  by  the  brookside. 

"  And  he  himself  as  swete  as  is  the  roote 
Of  lokorys,  or  eny  cetewale." 

— "  Sweete  as  bragat  is  or  meth, 
Or  hoord  of  apples  layd  in  hay  or  heth." 

"  The  hoote  somer  had  maad  his  hew  al  brown, 
And  certainly  he  was  a  good  felawe." 

Chaucer  saw  nature  with  frank,  wide-open 
eyes,  albeit  he  never  forgot  to  be  a  scholar, 
as  the  times  went. 

"  And  in  a  launde,  upon  a  hill  of  floures, 
Was  set  this  noble  goddesse  Nature, 
Of  branches  were  her  halles  and  her  boures, 
Ywrought,  after  her  craft  and  her  mesure." 

"  To  do  Nature  honour  and  pleasaunce  "  was 
so  good,  in  the  eyes  of  the  old  poet,  that  he 
did  not  nicely  weigh  the  manner  of  the  doing, 
viewed  from  the  stand-point  of  our  latter-day 
versifiers,  but  he  let  in  the  crispness  of  morn- 
ing and  the  pungency  of  spring  buds  in  lieu 
of  these  refinements  of  versification,  now  so 
highly  prized.  His  knightly  spirit  and  his 
courtly  instincts  could  not  repress  his  abound- 
ing love  for  the  singing-birds,  the  breezy  fields, 
and  the  wayside  brooks.  He  was  artist 
enough  to  know  the  value  of  words  and  the 
suggestive  force  of  the  more  elusive  elements 
of  nature  : — 

"  Verse,  a  breeze  'mid  blossoms  straying," 


64  B  Y-  W 'A  YS  AND  B IRD-NO  TES. 

as  Coleridge  expresses  it,  was  Chaucer's  verse 
in  a  large  degree.  His  was  a paradis  parfumd, 
of  a  kind  quite  different  from  the  hot-house 
paradise  of  our  modern  poetry,  whose  odors  are 
of  Vhuile  de  coco,  du  muse  et  dugoudron  so  liked 
by  Baudelaire  and  his  admirers. 

Emerson's  poems  are  good  to  have  in  one's 
tricycle-pouch.  I  wish  I  could  say  as  much  for 
those  of  Matthew  Arnold.  Nothing  can  be 
finer  than  the  tonic  raw  sweetness  of  some  of 
Emerson's  verses  when  read  in  the  solitude  of 
the  woods ;  and  no  doubt  this  unstrained 
American  honey  is  too  rich  (as  is  the  pulp  of 
our  papaws)  for  the  over-delicate  English  pal- 
ate. I  am  afraid  that  Mr.  Arnold  would  find 
fault  even  with  the  flavor  of  sassafras  tea  or 
rhubarb  pies  !  It  is  one  of  Emerson's  quali- 
ties, sharply  observable,  that,  whatever  maybe 
his  technical  short-coming,  his  thoughts  are  so 
phrased  in  his  poems  as  to  give  them  a  smack 
of  the  clean,  the  home-brewed,  the  genuine. 
A  cup  of  sweet-apple  cider,  with  its  honest  bou- 
quet and  non-intoxicating  effect,  is  not  a  whit 
more  grateful  than  some  of  his  wood-notes. 
He  had  the  nerve  to  preserve  the  aroma  of  a 
thought,  even  at  the  expense  of  a  false  rhyme 
or  a  halting  verse.  He  left  some  seeds  and 
floating  bits  of  apple-rind  in  his  cider.  As  we 
slowly  imbibe  his  precious  meanings  we  are 
ready  to  quote  him  : — 

"  I,  drinking  this, 
Shall  hear  far  Chaos  talk  with  me;" 

and  we  fall  into  a  state  of  mind  that  melts 

"  Solid  nature  to  a  dream." 
Let  some  flying  tourist  stop  for  a  moment 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  65 

on  a  breezy  hill-top,  as  I  did  lately,  and  read 
this  :— 

"  I  hung  my  verses  in  the  wind  ; 

Time  and  tide  their  faults  may  find  : 
All  were  winnowed  through  and  through  ; 
Five  lines  lasted  sound  and  true." 

Or  this  : — 

— "  The  bell  of  beetle  and  of  bee 
Knell  their  melodious  memory ; " 

and  he  will  feel  a  new  consciousness  of  how 
Nature 

"  Rounds  with  rhyme  her  every  rune." 

Scattered  all  through  Emerson's  poems  are 
thoughts  that  cut  into  nature  and  tap  her 
sweetest  and  most  hidden  veins. 

It  is  remarkable  that  no  Southern  poet  has 
arisen  to  give  us  the  wood-notes  of  the  land  of 
the  magnolia  and  the  orange.  Some  of  Syd- 
ney Lanier's  verses,  it  is  true,  are  dashed  with 
the  fervid  colors  of  the  semi-tropic,  but  he  did 
not  live  to  do  his  best,  and  his  ill-health  no 
doubt  interfered  with  his  out-door  studies. 
His  Marsh  Hymns  are  lofty,  fragmentary  na- 
ture-songs, and  I  have  no  doubt  that  when  his 
poems  appear  in  book-form,  as  they  soon  will, 
it  will  be  seen  that  his  death  was  a  sad  thing 
for  those  who  like  genuine  poetry.  Still  the 
fact  remains  that  we  have  no  poet  who  gives 
us  the  warm,  odorous,  fruitful  South  in  rhythm 
and  rhyme  slumbrous  as  her  sunshine  and 
electrifying  as  her  breezes.  Indeed,  no  poet, 
of  whatever  country,  has  ever  found  the  way 
to  an  expression  of  tropical  out-door  life.  Of 
course  I  do  not  speak  of  mere  descriptive 
verse,  which  is  the  lowest  order  of  poetry.  A 
5 


66  BY-WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

Southern  P^merson  would  not  be  content  with 
mere  adjectives  of  color  and  form  ;  he  would 
go  about  like  a  bumble-bee,  extracting  from 
nature  such  sweets  as  might  be  found  racy  of 
the  soil.  He  would  be  a  mole  among  the 
juicy  roots  of  plants,  a  butterfly  among  the 
flowers.  He  would  cut  into  the  sap-veins  of 
the  trees ;  he  would  peel  the  fragrant  barks. 
His  poems  would  not  be  composed  of  these 
things,  nor  principally  of  them,  but  their  flavor 
would  come  out  of  them,  and  out  of  the  sun- 
shine and  the  lazy  summer  winds. 

Who  knows  but  that  the  invention  of  the 
wheel,  this  charming  instrument  of  self-propul- 
sion, is  to  work  a  new  element  into  our  litera- 
ture— not  merely  the  wheel  element,  but  the 
provincial  element  — an  element  which  seems 
to  have  almost  disappeared  from  the  poetry 
and  fiction  made  in  the  great  literary  centres 
of  New  York,  London  and  Paris.  I  have  felt, 
while  enjoying  short  leisurely  tours  on  the  tri- 
cycle, that  all  the  bright  young  cyclists  of  our 
country  are  certainly  in  the  best  way  of  gath- 
ering that  knowledge  which  fully  complements 
the  lore  of  the  books.  Surely  it  is  given  to 
him  who  knows  Nature  and  loves  her,  to 
speak  : 

"  As  if  by  secret  sight  he  knew 
Where,  in  far  fields,  the  orchis  grew." 

IV. 

Here  are  my  notes  of  a  short  tricycle  run 
made  on  the  second  of  May,  1884.  The  trip 
was  far  more  pleasing  to  me,  no  doubt,  than 
I  can  make  it  appear  to  others,  but  the  notes 
may  serve  to  show  how  much  can  be  seen, 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPEKS.  67 

heard,  and  felt  in  a  little  while  under  the 
ordinary  circumstances  of  a  run ;  or  rather 
what  a  mass  of  observations  one  can  record 
by  the  industrious  use  of  one's  eyes,  ears,  and 
note-book,  and  pencil,  even  when  nothing 
really  unusual  occurs. 

I  set  out  quite  early  in  the  morning  over 
a  good  road.  A  slight  rain  had  fallen  the 
day  before,  and  there  were  a  few  puddles  here 
and  there,  but  no  real  mud.  The  spring  had 
been  a  little  slow  coming,  though  the  wheat- 
fields  were  waving  ankle-high  with  a  rich 
sward,  and  the  woods  were  washed  over  with 
the  tender  green?  of  tassels  and  leaves.  A 
bracing  freshness  pervaded  the  air,  which  was 
from  the  south — a  mere  breath  with  a  hint  of 
summer  warmth  in  it.  No  sooner  had  I 
cleared  the  town  and  got  rid  of  the  half-dozen 
ragged  urchins  that  ran  howling  after  me,  as 
if  I  might  have  been  mistaken  for  the  advance 
agent  of  a  circus,  than  I  put  on  a  spurt  of 
power,  bowling  along  in  a  level  lane,  with  a 
hedge  of  bois  d'arc  on  one  hand  and  a  high 
board  fence  on  the  other.  A  man  walking  in 
the  middle  of  the  road  ahead  of  me  evidently 
did  not  hear  me  coming,  for  when  I  whisked 
past  him  he  shied  like  a  young  colt  and 
glared  at  me  as  if  he  meant  to  attack  me,  but 
I  left  him  so  suddenly  that  I  could  not  analyze 
his  expression  further.  Somehow  this  little 
incident  called  up  De  Quincey's  Vision  of 
Sudden  Death — a  story  which  has  always 
seemed  to  me  a  most  perfect  piece  of  art-work. 
If  you  have  not  read  it,  I  advise  you  to  take 
it  with  you  on  your  first  outing.  It  will 
fill  an  hour  of  rest  with  an  enjoyment  wholly 


68  BY-WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

new.     You  will  understand  how  it  was  recalled 
by  the  trifling  incident  above  recorded. 

My  way  lay  due  east  for  nearly  a  mile,  with 
the  meadow-larks  whistling  in  the  fields  on  my 
right,  and  the  woodpeckers  chattering  on  the 
fence-posts  to  the  left.  The  woodpeckers 
(those  fellows  half  white  and  half  black  and 
hooded  in  scarlet)  had  just  arrived  from  the 
South,  and  appeared  overjoyed  with  their  sur- 
roundings. They  looked  very  clean  in  their 
shining  jet  coats  and  snow  under-garments. 
A  toll-gate  stood  at  the  end  of  the  lane.  I 
whirled  noiselessly  through  it  before  the  wo- 
man who  kept  it  could  decide  whether  my 
vehicle  was  down  on  her  list,  and  ran  over  a 
little  hill  just  as  the  sun  cleared  the  tree-tops 
in  the  east.  A  small  boy  was  riding  a  big- 
wheeled  plough,  to  which  three  fine  sleek 
horses  were  working  abreast.  The  musty 
odor  of  the  fresh-turned  soil  was  very  pleasant. 
Blue-birds  were  dropping  into  the  new  furrow 
behind  the  plough  to  get  the  larvae  of  various 
insects  exposed  there.  Two  sparrow-hawks 
were  wheeling  in  small  circles,  some  fifty  feet 
high,  watching  for  field-mice,  or  possibly  intent 
on  taking  one  of  the  blue-birds  unaware. 
There  was  a  worm-fence  on  one  side  of  the 
road  and  the  corners  were  literally  carpeted 
with  wild  blue-violets.  What  a  pity  it  is  that 
these  beautiful  flowers  have  no  perfume  !  The 
lack  seems  to  take  a  great  deal  from  their 
value  when  one  discovers  it.  It  is  almost  like 
finding  that  a  very  musical  song  has  no  mean- 
ing in  its  sonorous  phrases.  I  now  had  some 
stiff  work  going  up  a  hill  on  a  curve,  and  then 
came  a  smooth  bit  of  coasting,  followed  by  a 
short  stretch  through  level  heavy  sand  ;  then 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  69 

across  a  brook  on  an  iron  bridge  and  into  a 
grove  of  buckeye  trees  heavy  with  young  leaves 
and  clustered  blooms,  about  which  the  wild 
bees  were  booming  merrily  enough. 

Here  I  stopped,  and  sitting  in  the  saddle, 
sketched  in  the  rough  outlines  of  a  boy  who 
was  trying  to  snare  sucker-fish,  in  a  cl«ar  eddy 
of  the  brook,  with  a  looped  wire.  The  first 
Baltimore  oriole  of  the  season  was  singing 
overhead  in  its  peculiar,  monotonous  way. 
This  bird's  song  always  seems  spiral  to  me,  as 
if  it  had  got  a  twist  in  coming  forth.  On  the 
anchor-posts  of  an  old  water-gate,  I  saw  some 
of  the  finest  lichens  I  have  ever  met  with  ; 
great  round  rosettes,  puffed  and  ruffled,  show- 
ing many  delicate  shades  of  sap-green,  celadon 
and  gray.  Not  far  from  here  I  found  a  hill 
too  steep  for  comfortable  riding,  and  after 
pushing  my  machine  up  it,  I  was  glad  to  see 
before  me  a  long  stretch  of  level  road  through 
beautiful  farms.  An  apple  orchard,  too 
closely  set,  was  beginning  to  bloom,  and  a  long 
row  of  cherry-trees  was  white  as  a  windrow  of 
snow.  What  is  more  expressive  of  comforta- 
ble, worthy  wealth  and  liberal  security  from  the 
failures  of  life  than  a  broad,  well-kept  Western 
farm  ?  Here  were  fields  of  wheat,  so  wide  that 
they  looked  almost  like  prairies,  side  by  side 
with  meadow-lands  on  which  the  clover  and 
timothy  were  thick  and  green  over  hundreds 
of  acres ;  and  then  the  rich  black  plough-land, 
too,  where  soon  the  corn-planting  would  begin. 
Orchards,  garden-plats,  grazing  lands,  cattle, 
swine,  sheep,  and  horses,  broad-winged  barns, 
windmills  for  pumping  water,  and  a  spacious 
residence  embowered  in  maple  trees  ;  surely  it 
is  well  to  be  an  Indiana  farmer. 


70  B  F-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

I  bowled  along  at  a  good  rate  with  my  head 
high,  taking  in  deep  draughts  of  the  whole- 
some air ;  a  long  row  of  beehives  in  a  garden, 
with  the  busy  workers  stirring  on  their  little 
porches,  sweetened  the  scene  with  a  thought 
of  big  white  honey-combs  and  snowy  muffins. 
A  fair,,  yellow-haired  child  was  standing  on 
a  stile  as  I  ran  past  the  house,  and  she  looked 
at  me  with  great  surprised  blue  eyes,  holding 
meantime  her  little  sun-bonnet  in  her  hands. 
A  big  brown  dog  left  her  side  and  ran  bark- 
ing after  me  in  a  good-natured  way  for  some 
distance,  then  turned  and  leisurely  trotted 
back.  A  little  farther  on  I  stopped  to  watch 
a  pair  of  cat-birds  in  a  bit  of  hedge.  They 
seemed  to  be  looking  for  a  good  place  in  which 
to  build  their  nest,  for  the  female  had  a  slender 
wisp  of  dry  grass  in  her  mouth.  Up  and 
down  and  in  and  out  they  went,  all  the  time 
uttering  their  peculiar  mewing  cry.  Finally 
the  male  mounted  to  the  highest  branch  of  the 
hedge  and  poured  forth  a  sweet,  trickling 
medley,  not  unlike  the  night-song  of  the  South- 
ern mocking-bird,  though  of  far  slenderer  vol- 
ume and  inferior  timbre.  Why  is  it  that  the 
country  folk  have  a  contempt  for  the  cat-bird  ? 
I  have  found  this  beautiful  little  songster  under 
a  ban  from  Michigan  to  Florida,  with  no  one 
to  say  a  good  word  for  it,  and  yet,  the  mock- 
ing-bird and  brown-thrush  excepted,  it  has 
no  rival  in  America  as  a  singer. 

Driving  on  again  my  road  soon  began  to 
descend,  growing  steeper  and  steeper,  until  at 
length  I  put  my  feet  on  the  rest,  and,  with 
hand  on  the  brake,  coasted  at  dizzying  speed 
round  a  long  curve  down  into  a  dense  wood 
of  maple,  walnut,  and  plane  trees  that  bor- 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  71 

dered  a  little  river.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill  I 
met  a  man  driving  a  team  of  six  horses  hitched 
to  a  wagon  whereon  was  a  saw-log  sixteen 
feet  long  and  nearly  four  feet  in  diameter. 
The  log  was  tulip,  usually  called  poplar  in  the 
West,  the  Liriodendron  lulipifera  of  the  bota- 
nists, and  appeared  not  to  have  a  blemish  of 
any  sort  in  it.  What  a  grand  tree  it  must  have 
been  when  standing,  and  for  how  many  Junes 
it  had  bloomed  in  the  woods,  its  huge  flowers 
flaming  among  its  rich  green  leaves. 

For  some  distance  my  road  now  skirted 
the  foot  of  a  bluff  along  the  bank  of  the  river. 
At  one  point  I  stopped  for  awhile  to  watch 
a  fisherman  casting  for  bass.  He  was  in  a 
little  skiff  near  the  middle  of  the  river  and 
was  casting  down  stream  with  a  minnow  for 
bait.  He  appeared  to  understand  his  busi- 
ness, but  I  got  tired,  and  drove  on  before  he 
caught  anything ;  still  I  carried  away  with  me 
a  pleasing  impression, — in  my  memory  a  pict- 
ure of  the  silver  current  breaking  around  the 
skiff  and  the  tall  graceful  angler  patiently  ply- 
ing his  rod  and  reel.  What  fascinating  uncer- 
tainty there  is  in  angling !  What  a  big  fish 
one  is  always  just  on  the  point  of  catching  ! 
As  I  write  I  have  in  my  ears  the  murmur  of 
every  brook  from  Canada  to  the  chestnut-cov- 
ered hills  of  North  Georgia. 

Turning  aside  from  the  main  road  I  pushed 
my  tricycle  up  a  steep,  stony  hill  and  mount- 
ing, soon  found  myself  following  the  mean- 
derings  of  a  narrow  cart-way,  overshadowed  by 
wide-branching  beech  trees  just  beginning 
to  show  their  leaves.  A  half-mile  of  slow 
riding  brought  me  to  a  thicket  of  wild  plum 
bushes  loaded  with  their  fragrant  white 


72  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

blooms,  amongst  which  bees  and  other  insects 
were  glancing  and  humming,  and  a  number  of 
small  yellow  green  fly-catchers  were  actively 
engaged  in  a  restless  pursuit  of  their  proper 
food.  I  gathered  a  big  bunch  of  these  odorous 
plum-sprays  and  bound  it  fast  to  the  handle  of 
my  brake  lever  so  that  I  could  have  with  me 
in  my  further  journeying  the  fruity  breath  of 
the  wild  orchard. 

Running  down  a  long  rut-furrowed  slope,  and 
then  over  a  damp  flat  in  a  cool,  shady  hollow,  I 
came  to  a  nasty  little  stream  sweeping  through 
a  narrow  bog.  Here  I  called  a  halt  for  con- 
sultation. That  mud  looked  deep  and  treacher- 
ous. I  saw  where  a  wagon  had  been  pried 
out  of  it  with  fence  rails.  There  was  nothing 
to  do  but  get  across,  however,  so  I  fell  to 
work,  carrying  pieces  of  logs,  rails,  fallen 
boughs,  etc.,  until  I  had  made  a  quite  respect- 
able corduroy  bridge,  over  which  I  pushed  my 
machine  with  perfect  safety ;  then  I  had  to 
lift  it  over  a  large  log  that  had  fallen  across 
the  road.  In  fact  I  did  not  mount  again  for  a 
quarter  of  a  mile,  at  the  end  of  which  I  found 
myself  at  the  source  of  the  road,  where  it  ap- 
peared that  I  was  caught  fast  between  a  huge 
old  red  barn  and  a  weather-beaten  but  com- 
fortable looking  farm-house. 

A  brawny,  grizzled  man  with  a  hammer  and 
monkey-wrench  was  tinkering  with  a  disabled 
plough.  I  approached  him  cap  in  hand,  and 
mopping  the  perspiration  from  my  face.  He 
immediately  showed  a  deep  but  quasi-con- 
temptuous interest  in  the  mechanism  of  the 
tricycle.  I  plied  him  with  questions  as  to  his 
crop-prospects,  and  was  soon  on  easy  terms 
with  him.  I  got  a  drink  out  of  a  sweet  old 


TANGLE-LEAF  PAPERS.  73 

gourd  at  his  well,  and  obtained  permission  to 
ride  across  his  wide  pasture  land  to  a  road  a 
half-mile  distant.  I  mounted  in  his  barnyard, 
and,  while  he  held  open  a  big  gate  for  me, 
dashed  out  at  my  best  speed  into  the  level 
grass-field,  where  the  dandelions  shone  like 
stars.  A  herd  of  steers,  as  I  approached  them, 
eyed  me  wildly  for  awhile,  then  ran  away  at  a 
thundering  pace,  with  their  tails  whirling  and 
their  heads  high  in  air.  I  had  to  push  across 
thirty  acres  of  fresh  ploughed  land  (a  very  unin- 
teresting and  tiresome  operation)  before  I 
reached  the  road.  Now  came  a  long  spin  over 
a  surface  just  damp  enough  to  be  elastic,  and 
although  the  road-bed  had  been  gravelled  it  was 
quite  free  from  ugly  stones.  The  air  had 
freshened  and  was  blowing  in  sweet  gusts 
from  the  south. 

The  sunshine  was  growing  in  power ;  one 
could  almost  hear  the  buds  exploding.  A 
clover-field  beside  the  road  was  a  lovely 
sight,  though  not  yet  in  bloom.  Its  dark  green 
tufts  looked  as  if  they  had  gushed  out  of  the 
earth  in  a  moment  of  ecstatic  impulse.  In- 
deed, some  occult  force  made  itself  manifest 
in  every  bud  and  blade,  and  stalk  and  leaflet, 
from  which  one  could  not  fail  to  catch  a  fine 
mental  tonic.  I  passed  a  level  reach  of  maple 
wood  in  which  grew  scattered  patches  of  man- 
drake that  looked  like  the  grass-green  tents  of 
lilliputian  armies.  In  places  the  ground  was 
rosy  white  with  the  blooms  of  the  claytonia, 
or  yellow  with  the  stars  of  the  adder-tongue. 

What  sweet  and  sure  alchemic  recipes 
Mother  Earth  gives  us,  if  we  could  but  read 
them  !  How  unfailing  are  her  schemes  for 
the  perpetuation  of  life,  freshness,  strength, 


74  B  Y-  IVA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

beauty?  These  flowers  are  but  the  bubbles 
thrown  up  from  her  inexhaustible  veins  of  vital 
force.  Is  not  this  woodsy  fragrance  which 
loads  the  air  of  spring  mere  surplus  steam 
from  Nature's  alembics  ?  and  in  breathing  it  do 
we  not  take  into  our  blood  a  trace  of  her  elixir  ? 
One's  imagination  renews  itself  by  absorbing 
and  assimilating  the  precious  exhalations  from 
the  countless  valves  of  woods  and  fields.  How 
evenly  and  perfectly  our  book-lore  blends  and 
shades  into  what  we  gather  from  nature  ! 

"  Spirit  of  lake,  and  sea,  and  river — 
Bear  only  perfumes  and  the  scent 
Of  healthy  herbs  to  just  men's  fields." 

All  herbs  and  plants  are  healthy  and  whole- 
some, too,  in  their  way.  I  saw  a  flicker  eat 
the  berries  of  the  dreadful  night-shade — not 
on  this  tour,  for  the  plant  comes  later — and  I 
have  known  a  quail  to  swallow  the  seeds  of 
the  Jamestown  weed  with  no  bad  result.  But 
to  my  tricycling. 

I  soon  came  to  where  a  broad  road,  leading 
homeward,  crossed  mine  at  nearly  right-angles, 
and  I  set  my  face  towards  town  with  a  three- 
mile  run  before  me,  over  a  fine  rolling  way  be- 
tween incomparably  fertile  farms.  A  fox- 
squirrel  ran  ahead  of  me  on  a  fence  until  I 
came  so  near  him  that  he  sailed  off  into  a 
field  of  wheat,  and  went  bounding  through  the 
waving  green  blades  to  a  lone  walnut  tree,  up 
which  he  darted  and  disappeared  in  a  hole. 

The  spires  of  our  little  city  came  in  sight, 
gleaming  above  the  maple  trees  that  border 
the  streets.  I  bumped  across  the  railway 
track,  whirled  over  a  long  hill,  and  descended 
into  the  suburbs  with  my  blood  tingling,  and 
my  memory  full  of  fresh  sights  and  sounds. 
At  nine  o'clock  sharp  I  was  at  my  desk. 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS. 

" Silva  alta  JoviS)  lucusve  Diana" 

How  shall  we  account  for  the  old  mytholo- 
gies, or  shall  we  attempt  to  account  for  them 
at  all  ?  That  beauty  is  imperishable,  and  that 
whatever  fills  the  measure  of  logic  may  be 
taken  as  demonstrated,  has  somehow  come  to  be 
accepted  by  wise  men  as  true.  But  shall  we 
receive  or  reject  the  gods  of  the  ancients  on 
the  score  of  beauty  on  the  one  hand  or  of  logic 
on  the  other?  Who  ever  did  believe  in  the 
gods  ?  Were  they  men  of  feeble  minds  or 
debilitated  physiques — a  lot  of  degenerate 
clods  without  any  fixedness  of  character? 
Was  Agamemnon  a  fool,  Homer  a  dunce, 
Pythagoras  a  ninny,  or  Caesar  a  weakling  ? 

These  may  at  first  view  seem  questions  both 
trite  and  uninteresting ;  but  I  purpose  sketch- 
ing presently,  as  best  I  may,  the  outlines  of  a 
quiet  little  adventure  which  led  me  to  ponder 
deeply  over  the  proposition,  Was  there  ever 
any  foundation  in  fact  for  this  belief  in  the 
gods  ?  I  will  not  say  that  I  believe  there  ever 
was,  nor  can  I  own  to  a  total  disregard  for 
certain  rather  obscure  and  mysterious  evi- 
dences in  nature  of  the  existence  of  beings 
whose  tenure  of  material  bodies  is  as  certain 
and  indestructible  as  the  bodies  are  shadowy, 
and  whose  power  is  somehow  held,  for  some 
reason  hard  to  discover,  in  abeyance.  If 
gods  ever  were  they  now  are.  They  may  not 
be  now  palpable  or  visible  or  audible,  but 


;6  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

they  are  not  dead  or  banished.  For  our  pres- 
ent purpose  let  us  admit  that  time  was  when 
nature,  the  great  generator  of  mysteries,  dis- 
closed immortal  beings  to  man.  Were  these 
beings  necessarily,  because  immortal,  omnipo- 
tent or  superhuman  in  their  powers?  I 
should  say  they  probably  were  possessed  of 
more  than  human  potency  in  certain  ways. 
Immortality,  even  when  robbed  of  everything 
but  the  death-resisting  principle,  is  in  some 
way  very  nearly  married  to  invisibility  in  our 
idea  of  it.  The  power  of  rendering  itself  in- 
visible to  human  eyes,  that  is,  the  ability  to 
make  itself  a  nonentity  to  all  appearances,  is 
an  attribute  of  every  imaginable  god,  or  at 
least  of  every  god  at  all  like  those  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  mythologies. 

Now  suppose  certain  beings,  born  of  a  mys- 
terious play  of  nature,  possessed  of  these  two 
things,  immortality  and  the  power  of  rendering 
themselves  invisible,  and  what  more  is  needed 
as  a  basis  upon  which  to  build  the  fabric  of 
heathen  polytheism  ?  Why  not,  then,  take  the 
so-called  gods  to  have  been  a  race  of  such 
immortals,  without  any  other  attributes  of  the 
true  Theos  in  them  ?  If  such  they  were,  how 
natural  for  human  imagination,  operated  upon 
by  the  subtle  influences  of  awe  and  wonder,  to 
add  the  rest.  Indeed  it  seems  to  me  hardly 
fair,  this  laughing  to  scorn  the  beautiful  theol- 
ogy of  the  ancients  without  so  much  as  giving 
it  the  benefit  of  a  charitable  doubt,  and  with- 
out even  admitting  that  it  may  have  rested  on 
a  venial  mistake  arising  out  of  some  manifes- 
tations of  nature  now  withdrawn  or  in  abey- 
ance. But  the  gods  may  have  been  immaterial, 
in  the  common  sense,  and  yet  not  immortal  in 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS.   77 

the  best  meaning  of  the  word.  Certain  condi- 
tions of  mundane  things  might  have  been 
necessary  to  their  existence  here.  If  we 
should  study  nature  closely  for  the  purpose  we 
might  discover  those  conditions. 

And  this  fetches  from  its  hiding-place  my 
theory.  It  may  be  called  the  grove  theory. 
No  one  can  think  of  the  gods  as  separable 
from  the  woods  and  waters.  The  ancients  ad- 
mitted this.  They  went  further,  dedicating  to 
each  deity  its  grove  or  stream.  It  seems  to 
me  that  this  meant  more  than  mere  empty 
complimentary  dedication.  It  was  a  recogni- 
tion and  acknowledgment  of  the  conditions 
upon  which  the  gods  would  remain  with  them. 
In  short,  unsmitten,  unshorn,  pristine  nature 
could  accommodate  these  mysterious  beings, 
and  it  only.  The  groves  grown  of  virgin  soil, 
the  uncultivated  flowers  and  fruits,  the*  balm 
and  spice  of  perfect  trees — these  prepared  the 
air  for  the  gods  to  breathe.  Something,  we 
may  not  know  what — the  keen  pure  essence 
of  unchanged  nature  from  some  source  now 
practically  dried  up,  may  be — fed  them  and 
kept  them  within  the  bounds  of  visibility.  The 
dryads  disappeared  perforce,  it  may  well  be 
assumed,  when  their  woods  were  desecrated, 
and  the  naiads  when  their  fountains  were  pol- 
luted. The  fauns  faded  into  shadows  and 
were  blown  away  when  the  axe  and  saw  had 
felled  the  groves  and  fragrant  thickets.  The 
satyr  withdrew  into  the  deepest  recesses  of  the 
forests  as  man  advanced,  and  Apollo  and 
Diana  fled  away — whither  ? 

Possibly  some  secret  potency  existed  in  the 
air  that  flowed  through  those  virgin  woods 
and  over  those  unpolluted  streams  which  could 


78  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

give  to  all  those  immortals  the  power  of  ren- 
dering themselves  visible,  and  when  it  was 
exhausted  by  man's  encroachments  they  fell 
away  into  invisibility.  And  if  some  hidden 
cave  in  the  world  could  now  be  found  where 
nature  has  never  been  disturbed  by  even  the 
simplest  art,  may  be  there  might  be  discovered 
one  or  two  happy  deities  revelling  in  the  mer- 
est pool,  so  to  speak,  of  what  was  once  the 
great  ocean  of  their  "  peculiar  element."  If 
this  theory  is  true  the  gods  are  invisible,  not 
dead,  and  they  are  invisible  not  from  their 
own  choice,  but  because  their  "  peculiar  ele- 
ment "  is  exhausted  which,  while  it  lasted, 
made  visibility  possible. 

I  have  no  certain  recollection  of  having 
been  poring  over  this  or  any  similar  train  of 
semi-reasoning,  nor  have  I  the  faintest  knowl- 
edge of  what  I  was  thinking  of,  when  my 
guide,  halting  suddenly  and  knocking  the 
ashes  from  his  pipe  into  the  hollow  of  his 
great  brown  hand,  said,  "  Well,  here  we  are." 
At  the  sound  of  his  rather  gentle  though  deep 
and  sonorous  voice,  I  looked  around,  feeling 
as  if  I  had  been  aroused  from  a  dreamful  slum- 
ber, without  power  to  recall  any  definite  idea 
of  my  dreams. 

Every  one  has  experienced  this  feeling  when 
straying  in  an  idle,  musing  way  through  some 
still  grove  or  quiet  meadow.  Suddenly,  as  if 
by  a  spell  of  enchantment  everything  looks 
strange.  Even  the  sunlight'  is  unlike  itself. 
The  sough  of  the  wind  is  peculiarly  impressive. 
Even  the  color  of  the  grass  is  changed. 
You  rub  your  eyes ;  but  it  is  some  time  before 
you  see,  hear  and  feel  natural. 

So  with  me  just  then.    I  was  well  aware,  to  be 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS.   79 

sure,  that  starting  from  the  guide's  cabin  we 
had  walked  over  a  high  ridge,  almost  a  moun- 
tain, following  for  our  way  a  zigzag  path  or 
trail  that  led  us  back  and  forth  among  vast 
fragments  of  variegated  granite  under  wide- 
spreading  boughs  of  low  cedar  trees.  Now, 
however,  we  stood  on  the  bank  of  a  little  river 
whose  water  crept  past  us  in  a  slow  but  re- 
markably limpid  tide  as  clear  as  glass,  into 
which  I  gazed  with  an  indistinct  vision,  and 
feeling  a  vague  sense  of  the  strangeness  of 
everything  about  me.  A  pirogue  lay  moored 
at  our  feet.  The  guide  motioned  me  to  get  in. 
I  obeyed  at  once,  but  had  time  in  so  doing  to 
note  how  old  and  frail,  indeed  how  rotten  the 
boat  appeared  to  be.  The  guide  accidentally 
tossed  the  pipe-ashes  from  his  hand  down  upon 
one  of  the  gunwales  where  they  seemed  natu- 
rally to  disappear,  mingling  with  the  loose 
mould  and  minute  fungi  of  the  decaying  wood. 
In  this  frail  vessel  we  purposed  passing  over  a 
dangerous  rapid  of  the  stream  some  distance 
below  ;  for  it  was  the  spirit  of  adventure  had 
brought  me  here.  I  was  in  no  condition,  how- 
ever, to  realize  the  possibilities  of  the  step  I 
was  about  to  take.  I  shook  myself,  rubbed 
my  eyes  and  strove  to  get  rid  of  this  hazy 
mood ;  but  succeeded  only  when  the  guide  by 
a  vigorous  paddle-stroke  sent  us  straight  out 
to  the  stream's  middle.  Then  I  began  to  feel 
naturally  and  fell  to  making  a  close  study  of 
the  guide  and  the  boat. 

What  a  taciturn,  grimly  selfish-looking  fel- 
low the  man  was  !  His  face  was  not  a  bad 
one,  however,  and  his  form  was  ease  and 
strength  incarnate.  You  could  not  guess 
such  a  man's  age.  Not  a  gray  hair  on  his  head, 


So  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NOTES. 

not  a  wrinkle,  denoting  years,  in  his  brow  or 
cheeks,  and  yet  you  suspected  he  was  old.  It 
might  have  been  the  rather  hard  glitter  of  his 
calm,  gray  eyes,  or  the  half  stolid  way  in  which 
he  kept  closed  his  immense  hirsute  lips,  which 
suggested  something  of  senility  coupled  with 
unusual  strength.  His  bodily  movements,  too, 
though  full  of  elasticity  of  a  certain  sort, 
lacked  the  ready  suppleness  of  youth,  suggest- 
ing instead  the  half-automatic,  perfunctory 
agility  of  long  experience.  You  occasionally 
see  such  old  men  by  the  sea  or  in  the  moun- 
tains. They  are  men  whom  age  cannot  con- 
quer— the  men  of  perfect  health.  But  his  boat 
was  not  so  impervious  to  time  and  exposure,  it 
seemed.  A  kind  of  dry  rot  had  attacked  it, 
apparently  years  ago.  This,  however,  seemed 
to  have  added  to  its  buoyancy,  for  it  danced 
upon  the  water  like  a  bubble  or  a  feather.  I 
could  not  help,  as  I  glanced  from  man  to  boat, 
imagining  a  sort  of  rapport  between  them,  and 
presently  the  odd  fancy  that,  like  the  centaur 
and  the  horse,  they  were  really  one,  took  hold 
on  my  mind  so  forcibly  that  I  could  not  re- 
strain a  low  laugh  as  we  began  to  glide  down 
the  stream,  so  ludicrously  did  the  blending  of 
the  guide's  gray,  old  clothes  with  the  sides  and 
bottom  of  the  gray,  old  boat,  in  color  and  text- 
ure, enforce  the  whimsical  thought. 

It  may  as  well  be  stated  here  that  the  stream 
upon  which  we  were  now  afloat  ran  past  the 
guide's  cabin  over  on  the  other  side  of  the 
ridge.  But  to  do  so  it  had  to  make  a  complete 
double  round  a  great  point,  after  dashing 
through  a  deep,  hidden  valley,  down  stony 
precipices  and  between  the  close-drawn  walls 
of  a  resounding  gorge. 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS.   8r 

My  seat  was  forward  near  the  prow  of  the 
boat,  and  I  could  look  straight  ahead  over  the 
little,  decaying  staff  which,  in  imitation  of  a 
bowsprit,  slanted  off  from  the  pirogue's  beak. 
A  glance  down  the  river  showed  me  how  near 
to  the  dizzy  escarpments  of  the  mountain  its 
current  flowed,  whilst  over  against  this  vast 
wall  a  wooded  country,  almost  flat,  swept  off  to 
a  range  of  low  green  hills  a  mile  distant. 

The  guide  propelled  our  frail  craft  with  a 
short,  broad  paddle  which  must  have  been 
very  old,  for  the  wood  of  which  it  was  made 
had  turned  green  and  was  curiously  creased 
with  worm-furrows  and  slimy  with  fungus  or 
moss.  Besides  this  paddle,  a  long  cane  rod, 
for  use  when  the  process  of  polling  was  ne- 
cessary, lay  at  hand.  But,  so  sensitive  seemed 
our  ancient  pirogue  to  even  the  least  impulse, 
there  was  little  need  of  any  engine,  more  than 
the  stream's  own  current,  to  propel  us  withal. 
Noiselessly  and  evenly  we  slipped  down  the 
tide,  much  like  the  shadowy  figures  of  a  dream, 
it  seemed  to  me,  between  the  fern-braided 
banks.  We  scarcely  made  a  ripple  as  we 
went.  My  habit  of  close  observation  soon 
prevailed  over  the  dreamy  mood  that  had  set- 
tled upon  me,  and  I  began  a  minute  study  of 
the  shores  as  they  stole,  by  apparent  motion, 
to  the  rear  of  us.  Below  the  wild  tangles  of 
ferns  and  semi-fluviatic  plants  beautifully 
waved  lines  of  parachrose  stones  lay  in  blend- 
ing strata,  as  if  half-welded  by  some  process 
of  fluxion  long  since  ended — a  dim  polychrome 
rendered  doubly  effective  by  our  motion.  On 
the  side  opposite  to  the  ridge  the  bank  was 
quite  low,  giving  us  free  insight  to  the  farthest 
6 


82  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD- NO TES. 

glooms  of  the  woods,  wjiere  wild  flowers  of 
many  kinds  grew  in  profusion. 

We  had  proceeded  but  a  few  hundred  yards 
when  I  caught  sight  of  a  pretty,  dappled  fawn 
peering  out  at  us  with  its  great,  mellow  eyes 
from  a  clump  of  green  shrubs.  I  now  felt 
deeply  vexed  with  myself  for  allowing  the  un- 
reasonable importunities  of  the  guide  to  cause 
me  to  leave  my  trusty  rifle  behind  at  his  cabin. 
But  a  moment  later,  when  the  lissom,  young 
animal  against  which  I  was  aiming  imaginary 
bullets  sped  away  like  the  very  spirit  of  merri- 
ness,  I  did  not  regret  the  gun.  The  common 
wild  birds  of  the  woods  were  everywhere. 
Blue  jays  and  yellow  finches,  fly-catchers, 
nut-hatches  and  thrushes  made  a  great  chirp- 
ing and  twittering  along  with  the  mingled 
rustlings  of  their  wings.  I  noted  six  or  seven 
varieties  of  woodpecker,  among  them  the 
ivory-bill  and  that  great,  scarlet-crested,  black 
king  of  the  woods  named  by  the  naturalists 
Hylotomus  pileatus .  Water  fowls  of  the 
smaller  kinds  flew  up  before  us,  and  occasion- 
ally a  blue  heron  or  a  small  wader  of  the  bit- 
tern kind  took  wing  in  its  peculiarly  stately 
way. 

A  belted  kingfisher,  that  most  beautiful  of 
all  our  birds  of  the  streams,  suddenly  appeared 
in  the  air  just  in  front  of  me,  where  he  hov- 
ered for  a  moment  as  if  doubtful  whether  to 
fly  over  us  and  go  up  the  river  or  to  turn 
about  and  retreat  before  us.  He  chose  the 
latter.  As  he  did  so  he  uttered  that  sharp 
little  laugh  every  angler  has  heard.  O  beauti- 
ful bird !  your  laugh  has  an  evil  ring !  O 
halcyon  !  there  is  a  great  icicle  in  your  heart, 
no  matter  how  fine  the  weather  you  bring. 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS.    83 

By  short  flights  this  bird  kept  a  certain  distance 
ahead  of  us,  alighting  now  on  a  projecting 
stone  of  the  cliff  on  one  hand,  and  now  on  a 
reaching  maple  bough  on  the  other,  eyeing  us 
warily  as  we  approached  and  always  laughing 
as  it  spread  its  gay  pinions  to  float,  rather 
than  fly,  down  the  steady  little  wind  which 
drew  along  with  the  stream's  course.  We  left 
all  the  other  birds  behind  us.  The  herons 
and  bitterns,  describing  the  arc  of  a  circle  to 
avoid  us,  invariably  turned  up  the  stream  in 
their  flight,  and  the  little  sandpipers  and  shad- 
owy looking  waders  of  smaller  kinds  merely 
flitted  from  side  to  side  of  the  water. 

Sitting  with  my  back  to  the  guide  and 
watching  the  halcyon's  manoeuvres,  I  began  in 
an  idle  way  to  generate  a  fantastic  theory  con- 
necting its  flight  with  our  own  by  a  thread  of 
fatalistic  destiny.  He,  the  beautiful,  happy 
bird,  was  on  the  wind  current;  we  on  the 
water-stream.  We  were  in  a  frail  rotten 
canoe ;  he  on  his  own  splendid  wings.  How 
delightfully  easy  for  him  to  evade  death  or 
even  danger,  whilst  we,  despite  all  exertions  to 
the  contrary,  might  soon  speed  right  down  to 
destruction !  An  underlying  stone  too  near 
the  surface  could  crush  our  craft  into  shreds. 
This  bird  of  the  hard,  metallic  laugh  might  be 
the  demon  of  the  stream  leading  us  on  to  the 
rapids,  to  shout  and  scream  and  jeer  when  we 
were  dashed  to  pieces  in  the  canon. 

I  noted  now,  by  a  glance,  that  our  velocity 
was  gradually  increasing,  and  that  we  were 
following  the  sinuations  of  a  sort  of  central 
current,  which  flowed  among  great  bowlders 
and  angular  fragments  of  granite.  The  guide 
used  the  paddle  merely  as  a  rudder,  and  the 


84  B  Y-  WA  ys  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

cane,  only  now  and  then,  to  push  us  away 
from  a  dangerous  breaker.  The  day,  which 
had  been  a  singularly  fine  one,  was  now  fast 
drawing  to  its  close,  the  sun  having  fallen  be- 
hind the  ridge,  and  a  soft  bloom  hung  directly 
over  us — a  shadow  overtopped  by  the  vast 
reaches  of  yellow  sunshine.  Our  flight,  how- 
ever, would  be  short  aad  the  rapids  would 
swallow  us,  or  happily  we  would  swing  round 
the  mountain's  wall  and  slip  clown  the  gentler 
current  beyond  to  the  guide's  cabin,  before  the 
coming  of  twilight,  possibly  before  sunset. 

The  guide  had  described  to  me,  in  his 
grimly  laconic  way,  how  he  had  frequently 
passed  these  rapids  for  the  mere  excitement 
of  the  adventure.  I  was  the  first  man  he  had 
ever  led  into  this  cove  and  he  was  sure  that 
no  human  being,  himself  excepted,  had  ever 
before  set  foot  here.  This  communication 
was  sufficient  of  itself  to  brace  me  beyond  any 
fear,  even  if  I  had  been  a  most  nervous  man, 
instead  of  a  resolute  naturalist  used  to  danger. 
Therefore  I  looked  forward  to  the  catastrophe 
of  this  little  drama  with  a  calm  mind  and  even 
pulse,  toying,  meanwhile,  with  the  curious 
fancy  that  the  halcyon  was  luring  us  on  to  de- 
struction. 

I  was  once  talking  with  a  great  man,  whose 
profound  knowledge  and  wise  judgment  would 
seem  to  preclude  trivial  fancies  from  his  mind, 
and  was  surprised  at  hearing  him  tell  how 
often,  in  his  moments  of  solitude,  his  imagina- 
tion or  fancy  would  fasten  upon  some  insignifi- 
cant thing  as  ominous  or  prophetic.  A  gay 
beetle  dancing  in.  the  sunlight  before  him ;  a 
withered  leaf  blown  across  his  path ;  a  sud- 
denly discovered  violet  or  flower-de-luce ;  the 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS.   85 

peculiar  tone  of  a  bird's  voice ;  any,  even  the 
least  noteworthy  thing,  would  hint  to  him  of 
the  future.  He  would  find  himself  trying  his 
fortune,  so  to  speak,  by  little  tests  put  in  an 
almost  involuntary  and  wholly  whimsical  way, 
to  accidents  and  circumstances  as  they  would 
come  of  things  as  trivial  as  the  mere  breaking 
of  a  twig  or  blowing  away  of  a  flower  petal. 
He  related,  with  minute  details,  how  once  an 
emerald-green,  peculiarly  brilliant  scarabaeus 
kept  itself  by  short,  sudden  flights,  just  ahead 
of  him  in  a  woodland  path,  and  how  after  he 
had  followed  it  some  distance,  wondering 
what  it  was  leading  him  to,  he  came  upon  a 
huge  rattle-snake,  coiled  ready  for  a  spring. 
The  beetle  had  saved  the  life  of  a  great  states- 
man and  a  true  man  ! 

I  could  not  console  myself  with  the  fancy 
that  the  kingfisher  would  steer  us  safely 
through  the  rapids  ;  for  his  voice  was  insincere, 
and  his  very  movements  would  forcibly  suggest 
sinister  things.  Such  is  human  perversity, 
moreover,  that  I  preferred  the  evil  interpreta- 
tion. I  actually  found  myself  gloating  over 
the  anticipation  of  the  halcyon's  successful 
stratagem.  I  even  smiled  as  I  saw,  in  fancy, 
our  boat  dissolve  into  fibres  and  ourselves  go 
whirling  through  awful  vortices  mangled  and 
dead ! 

Nevertheless,  I  noted  everything  we  passed, 
and  fixed  in  my  memory  with  the  power  of  a 
trained  concentration  the  changes  in  the 
landscape  bordering  the  stream.  These 
changes  were  constant,  blending  into  each 
other  like  colors  on  the  artist's  canvas.  I  im- 
agined that  the  trees  and  shrubs  and  ferns, 
and  the  aquatic  grasses  into  which  the  mar 


86  B  Y-  WA  YS  A  ND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

ginal  ripples  of  the  river  leaped  with  low  whis- 
perings, constantly  grew  brighter  and  greener 
as  we  advanced  Overhead  the  sky  was 
purely  blue  and  clear,  with  just  a  hint  of  the 
yellow  sunlight  flung  athwart  it.  In  mid-air, 
above  the  mountain's  shadow,  there  hung  a 
misty  splendor,  such  as  is  often  seen  on  very 
hot  days  hovering  over  water.  A  fragrance, 
which  strengthened  apace  with  our  motion, 
reached  my  sense,  as  if  from  some  gradually 
opened  pot  poitrri  of  all  sweet,  spicy  things. 
The  great,  belted  kingfisher  seemed  to  feel 
this  as  he  led  on,  flinging  back  at  us  the  chat- 
ter of  his  voice  and  the  rich,  silken  clash  of 
his  wings. 

I  was  now  aware  of  an  obscure  feeling  of 
restless  expectancy  beginning  to  infuse  itself 
through  me.  I  turned  half  about  to  look  at 
my  guide.  He  made  a  frightful  grimace  at  me 
for  rocking  the  boat,  and  glancing  down  I  saw 
some  minute  sprays  of  water  bubble  over  the 
gunwale !  Out  through  the  momentary  scowl 
of  the  guide's  face  his  vast  age  seemed  to  leer 
like  a  wild  demon.  Those  bubbles  leaping 
over  the  boat's  rotten  side  reminded  me  of 
how  easily  it  might  swamp  in  the  rapids. 
With  a  little  twinge  of  self- rebuke  for  my 
thoughtlessness,  I  resumed  my  former  posi- 
tion. 

Within  these  last  few  moments  of  time, 
some  change  of  no  doubtful  sort,  but  still  a 
change  which  eludes  expression  even  now, 
had  taken  place  in  the  general  appearance  of 
all  surrounding  things.  It  may  have  been  an 
atmospheric  or  chromatic  variance,  it  may 
have  been  merely  the  mutations  of  the  evening 
shadows  hovering  in  this  low  valley ;  but,  from 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS.   87 

whatever  cause,  a  something  like  the  glamour 
of  a  dream  or  of  romance  had  settled  down 
upon  stream  and  rocks  and  trees.  An  exhila- 
ration like  that  induced  by  a  salt  breeze,  more 
refined  and  subtile,  however,  took  hold  on  me. 
The  motion  of  the  boat  was  now  quite  rapid, 
but  smooth  and  noiseless. 

I  began  to  be  impressed  with  the  utter,  the 
primeval,  the  unchanged  beauty  of  the  land- 
scape. These  woods,  locked  in  by  awful 
precipices,  this  stream,  full  of  dangerous  falls, 
had  never  been  troubled  by  hunters  or  anglers, 
or  naturalists  or  tourists,  nor  yet  by  the  insa- 
tiable makers  of  farms.  Pristine  power  and 
perfectness  dwelt  here  as  they  did  aeons  ago. 
I  looked  and  saw  the  smooth,  greenish-colored 
bark  of  the  trees,  the  deep  expression  of  riant 
vitality  in  the  leaves  ;  I  drew  into  my  gratified 
sense  the  strengthening  bouquet  of  surround- 
ing nature,  and  then  suddenly  the  inquiry, 
from  what  source  I  cannot  say,  arose  in  my 
mind,  are  the  gods  still  here  ?  At  first  it  was 
a  half-idle  thought,  blown  across  my  mental 
field  like  a  rose  petal  across  a  garden  ;  but  it 
found  a  lodgment.  I  toyed  with  it  and  it 
grew.  It  suited  my  mood  and  the  mood  of 
nature. 

The  halcyon  flitted  on  before  us,  and  now, 
far  away,  like  the  soft  murmur  of  a-  breeze,  our 
ears  caught  the  pulsating  sound  of  the  rapids, 
A  deer,  bearing  young  antlers,  stood  on  the 
bank  and  very  steadily  eyed  us  as  we  passed. 
He  did  not  seem  to  fear  us,  his  gaze  denoting 
only  a  lively  curiosity.  Indeed  he  had  no 
cause  to  fear  us,  for  all  thought  of  the  chase 
was  far  from  me,  and  as  for  my  guide  he  had 
enough  to  do  caring  for  the  boat. 


88  B  Y-  WA  YS  A  N'D  BIRD- NO  TES. 

Are  the  gods  still  here  ?  The  question  fed 
my  fancy.  I  began,  in  a  half-earnest,  half- 
idle  way,  to  scrutinize  every  dim  opening, 
every  shadowy  recess  of  the  woods,  as  we  sped 
by.  I  wove  a  cocoon  of  the  old,  silken  webs 
of  poesy  around  about  me,  looking  through  the 
sheeny  film  of  which  I  hoped  to  assist  the  shy 
deities  in  taking  on  visibility.  If  I  could  only 
see  one  god,  even  though  it  flitted  past  me  a 
ghostly,  diaphanous  mockery  of  its  former  self, 
what  a  joy  it  would  be  ! 

The  wings  of  our  luring  halcyon  were  now 
in  almost  constant  motion,  so  swift  was  our 
following,  and  the  sound  of  the  voice  of  the 
waterfall  was  deepening  and  spreading.  Some 
little  thrills  of  quietly  ecstatic  delight  began  to 
trouble  my  senses.  I  have  occasionally  felt 
the  same  when  sailing  before  a  smart  breeze  in 
an  open  boat  after  a  long  absence  from  the 
sea. 

At  some  distance  before  us  I  saw  a  shining 
line  drawn,  like  a  wavering  gossamer,  across 
the  surface  of  the  river.  Beyond  it  a  silvery 
mist  swayed  in  the  gloom  of  giant  trees  that 
partially  overshadowed  the  water.  This  line 
was  the  break  where  the  cataract  began  and 
this  mist  was  the  spray  from  the  agitated 
stream  in  the  canon ;  but  to  my  mind  the 
silvery  thread  was  the  index  of  something 
more,  and  with  a  leap,  so  to  speak,  my  imagi- 
nation reached  the  threshold  of  the  gods !  The 
line  marked  the  boundary  of  the  haunts  of  the 
shining  ones.  Heavy  and  sweet  the  odors 
drifted  upon  us,  and  in  all  the  trees  we  heard 
a  satin  rustle.  The  cardinal-birds  and  the 
wood-thrushes  suddenly  ceased  their  singing. 
Deeper  and  deeper  we  sank  into  the  narrowing 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF  THE  GODS.   89 

dell,  sweeter  and  softer  the  gloom  grew  apace. 
I  marked  well  the  giant  trees  just  beyond  the 
sheeny  line,  and  saw  through  the  spaces  be- 
tween them  shadowy  mysteries  flitting  to  and 
fro — mysteries  that  a  dash  of  sunlight  would 
have  dissipated,  that  a  puff  of  wind  would  have 
lifted  up  and  scattered  like  smoke.  Faster 
and  faster  we  sped,  wilder  and  wilder  grew 
the  flight  of  the  halcyon.  He  could  not  take 
time  now  to  light  at  all,  but  only  to  hover  a 
moment  at  eligible  perching  places,  and  then 
hurry  on  before  us. 

What  a  thrill  is  dashed  through  a  moment 
of  expectancy,  a  point  of  supreme  suspense, 
when  by  some  time  of  preparation  the  source 
of  sensation  is  ready  for  a  consummation — a 
catastrophe !  At  such  a  time  one's  soul  is 
isolated  so  perfectly  that  it  feels  not  the  re- 
motest influence  from  any  other  of  all  the  uni- 
verse. The  moment  preceding  the  old  pa- 
triarch's first  glimpse  of  the  Promised  Land 
— that  point  of  time  between  uncertainty  and 
certainty,  between  pursuit  and  capture,  where- 
into  is  crowded  all  the  hopes  of  a  lifetime,  as 
when  the  brave  old  sailor  from  Genoa  first 
heard  the  man  up  in  the  rigging  utter  the 
shout  of  discovery — the  moment  of  awful  hope, 
like  that  when  Napoleon  watched  the  charge 
of  the  Old  Guard  at  Waterloo,  is  not  to  be 
described.  There  is  but  one  such  crisis  for 
any  man.  It  is  the  yes  or  the  no  of  destiny. 
It  comes,  he  lives  a  life-time  in  its  span  ;  it 
goes,  and  he  never  can  pass  that  point  again. 

But  there  are  crises,  scarcely  less  absorb- 
ing, to  which,  after  they  are  passed,  one  can 
turn  and  almost  live  them  over.  These  are 
the  crises  into  which  no  element  of  selfishness, 


90  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD- NO  TES. 

more  than  the  mere  modicum  contained  in  the 
anticipation  of  pleasurable  sensations,  has 
entered,  or  crises  of  the  imagination  based 
wholly  on  phantasmal  exigencies.  I  reach 
back  the  powers  of  my  memory  now,  and  they 
fetch  up  out  of  the  past,  even  to  the  minutest 
detail,  the  whole  of  that  little  period  of  time 
during  which  I  waited,  with  bated  breath  and 
condensed  expectancy,  to  see  a  god  ! 

The  river  was  bearing  us  on  at  a  rate  of 
speed  which,  but  for  the  silent  evenness  of  the 
motion,  would  have  been  frightful  under  better 
circumstances.  But  the  wood  of  which  the 
pirogue  was  made — it  must  have  been  yellow 
tulip — seemed  so  unsound  and  semi-disinte- 
grated that  the  wonder  was  it  did  not  dissolve 
into  a  flake  of  vegetable  mould  upon  the  water, 
and  thus  let  us  sink ! 

A  vast  white  bird,  probably  a  snowy  heron 
the  Garzetta  candidissima  of  our  naturalists, 
swept  majestically  across  from  side  to  side  of 
the  river,  directly  over  the  mysterious  shining 
line  and  just  hitherward  of  the  pale  mist, 
quickly  losing  itself  among  the  trees.  Again 
I  saw,  or  imagined,  shadowy  forms  stealing 
through  rifts  in  the  flower-sprent  glooms  of  the 
woods.  But  they  were  less  satisfactory  than 
the  dimmest  forms  of  a  dream.  I  could  not 
follow  them  a  second  of  time. 

A  broad  booming  heralded  our  approach  to 
the  cataract.  We  felt  no  motion,  so  steady 
was  our  sweep,  and  yet  we  were  leaving  the 
dreamy  wind  behind  us.  Halcyon,  with  erect 
and  dishevelled  crest,  led  on  in  an  ecstasy  of 
chirp  and  flutter.  I  became  aware,  through 
some  slight,  ominously  decisive  movement  of 
the  guide,  that  he  was  preparing  for  a  supreme 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF -THE   GODS.        91 

effort.  We  were  nearly  opposite  a  grand 
opening  in  those  stately  trees,  out  of  which 
seemed  to  issue  the  silvery  line  which  cut  the 
river.  I  leaned  forward,  with  suspended 
breath,  to  catch  a  glimpse  right  down  it  as  we 
should  pass.  The  gods  were  there,  I  knew 
they  were  ;  I  should  see  some  one  of  them,  at 
least,  if  only  a  sylvan  faun  or  satyr,  or  a  dryad 
slowly  withdrawing  into  the  heart  of  a  tree. 
Deus  ecce!  Deus. 

That  great  white  bird  came  out  of  the  shad- 
ows of  the  woods  again,  and  curving  its  flight 
down  the  stream  seemed  to  melt  into  the  mist. 
A  sensation  of  dewy  coolness  crept  over  me, 
as  if  shaken  from  the  rorid  sandals  of  some 
passing  naiad.  The  bank  of  the  river  opposite 
to  the  ridge's  precipice  now  presented  a  gay, 
almost  fantastic  appearance.  Tall,  aquatic 
grasses,  thinly  interspersed  with  certain  scar- 
let-spiked riparian  weeds,  were  sown  at  the 
water's  verge ;  their  long  slender  stalks  and 
semi-translucent  leaves,  waving  to  the  impulse 
of  air  and  water-ripple,  sent  forth  a  sort  of 
shimmer  like  that  which  Virgil  intended  to 
describe  with  the  phrase  "  Turn  silvis  scena 
coruscis  " — a  waving  motion  with  light  flashing 
and  flickering  through.  Right  opposite  this  a 
narrow,  vertical  rent  intersected  the  ridge,  and 
through  it  an  almost  level  finger  of  the  sun 
reached  to  caress  the  grass.  Just  as  we  passed 
I  noted,  by  an  instantaneous  glance,  a  strange 
and  beautiful  thing — a  troop  of  dragon-flies, 
purple-bodied  and  silver-winged,  filing  rapidly, 
in  open  order  of  ones  and  twos,  across  the 
sunlight  into  the  dewy  recesses  of  the  river's 
fringe.  Each  gaudy  insect,  as  it  flew,  wavered 
in  the  air  so  dreamily  and  eccentrically  that 


92  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

somehow  I  was  reminded  by  their  course  of 
those  shadowy,  silvery  lines  in  the  blades  of 
Damascus  daggers. 

We  slipped  on  and  on,  still  following  the 
now  madly  careering  halcyon.  For  the  mer- 
est point  of  time,  not  long  enough  for  an  eye 
to  twinkle,  we  were  opposite  the  rift  in  the 
woods  and  trembling  on  the  verge  of  mystery. 
I  looked  down  the  open  vista  and  saw  some- 
thing, I  know  not  what — a  form  or  a  shadow, 
an  image  conjured  up  by  my  imagination,  or 
only  a  blending  of  the  glooms  and  gleams  by 
force  of  distance  and  velocity — but  a  new  ele- 
ment was  added  to  mv  nature.  I  felt  a  great 

*•  O 

thrill.  A  new  joy  took  root  in  my  heart.  A 
new  flower  blew  open  in  my  soul.  Accipio 
agnoscoque  deos  ! 

It  seemed  that  down  that  aisle  I  could  look 
to  the  remotest  age  of  time ;  and  out  of  it, 
blowing  into  my  eager  face,  I  felt  the  un- 
changed, the  unchangeable  spirit  of  Eld ! 
Was  it,  or  not,  a  face  that  I  saw  ?  Can  I  ever 
know  ?  The  flowing  hair,  like  blown  supple 
ringlets  of  gold  floss,  the  gray  deep  eyes,  the 
divinely  smiling  lips ;  were  they  not  there  ? 
And  the  shining  body  and  agile  limbs,  did  I 
only  fancy  I  saw  them  ?  How  shall  I  ever  be 
sure  ?  O  !  Dea  certe.  An  indescribable  some- 
thing, as  of  that  whole  landscape  melting  and 
vanishing,  by  a  sudden  and  noiseless  deflagra- 
tion, followed  close  upon  this  fortunate  mo- 
ment. With  a  harsh,  maniacal  cry  of  delight, 
the  belted  halcyon  leaped  over  the  coruscating 
line  into  the  silvery  mist  beyond.  And,  like 
an  arrow  flung  from  the  bent  bow  of  the  river, 
we  we  re  whirled  after  him  into  the  vast  fanged 
jaws  of  the  canon. 


THE  THRESHOLD  OF*THE  GODS.       93 

I  felt  our  pirogue  leap  and  shiver ;  I  heard 
awful  noises,  as  of  battles  and  storms  and  tu- 
multuous applaudings,  as  of  a  million  clapping 
hands,  as  we  rushed  down  into  the  rent  hill. 
Sic,  sicjuvat  ire  sub  umbras  !  All  above  us  the 
mist  and  spume  boiled  and  rolled ;  all  below 
us  the  mad  waves  leaped  and  fought;  all 
round  us  the  gray,  wet  fragments  of  granite 
offered  destruction.  Nature's  wildest  frenzy 
of  passion  was  bearing  us  down,  down,  down  ! 
O,  the  calm  madness  that  seized  me  !  It  was 
awe  traced  in  marble — it  was  terror  frozen  in 
ice !  O,  the  sweet  vision,  so  suddenly  mine, 
so  abruptly  gone  !  A  mysterious  joy,  like  the 
memory  of  a  heavenly  dream,  lingered  in  my 
heart,  down  deeper  than  any  fear  of  death 
could  go. 

Deeper  and  deeper  we  plunged  down  be- 
tween the  dank,  fantastically  grooved  jaws  of 
the  gorge,  till  the  mist  and  darkness  blended 
into  one,  and  the  thunder  of  the  stream  in  its 
agony  was  appalling.  Even  this  did  not 
drown  the  metallic  laugh  of  the  halcyon  as  it 
led  on  through  that  horrid  tumult.  I  felt  a 
wet  wind  rushing  over  me,  I  saw  the  spume 
sparkle  like  phosphor,  whilst  the  shark-like 
teeth  of  the  walls  on  either  hand  drew  closer 
upon  me. 

How  deep  the  ecstasy  below  us  !  How  far- 
reaching  the  immitigable  storm-mist  above  us ! 
How  old  and  worn  the  stolid  stones  about  us  ! 
O  threshold  of  the  gods,  what  a  distance  be- 
hind us !  O  sweet,  calm,  every-day  world, 
how  infinitely  removed  from  us ! 

Finally  we  felt  a  mighty  swell  lift  us  and 
savagely  shake  us.  A  heavy  spray  dashed 
over  us,  and  our  frail  vessel  quivered  and 


94  B  y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

quaked,  as  if  in  a  convulsion  of  pain.  Sud- 
denly the  gorge  closed  up  till  the  slimy  walls 
thereof  oppressed  us  and  its  jagged  teeth 
grazed  us  on  either  side.  But  on  we  rushed, 
tempest  behind  us,  thunder  before  us,  the 
blackness  of  utter  darkness  all  about  us,  and 
at  last,  with  a  mighty  explosion  of  all  terrors, 
we  were  hurled  like  a  missile  from  some  giant 
engine — a  very  missile,  indeed — forth  from 
the  grim,  stony  lips  of  that  awful  fissure,  reel- 
ing and  spinning  far  out  upon  the  swift,  level 
bosom  of  the  little  river  lapsing  into  the  open 
country. 

The  evening  farewell  of  the  sun  was  glorify- 
ing the  distant  mountain  lines,  the  sweet 
maple  trees  on  either  side  of  us  were  waving 
betwixt  gloom  and  splendor,  and  the  breeze 
was  a  deep,  tender  sigh  of  relief. 

"  Unde  hac  tarn  clara  repente 
Tempestas  ?  " 

The  belted  halcyon  turned  aside  in  his  flight, 
and  perching  upon  a  bough  laughed  his  fill  at 
us  as  we  drew  past  him.  The  roar  of  the  rap- 
ids receded  and  faded,  leaving  at  last  in  my 
heart  a  tender  melody  which  never  can  depart. 
I  had  hovered  on  the  THRESHOLD  OF  THE 
GODS' 


BROWSING   AND  NIBBLING. 

I  WAS  once  following  a  tireless  guide 
through  a  wild  mountain  region  of  the  South, 
when,  in  answer  to  a  direct  question,  he  de- 
livered himself  as  follows: — 

"What  makes  me  allus  a-nibblin'  an' 
a-browsin'  of  the  bushes  an'  things  as  I  goes 
along  ?  Well,  I  dunno,  'less  hit's  kase  I've 
sorter  tuck  a  notion  to.  A  feller  needs  a  heap 
o'  nerve  ef  he  'spects  to  be  much  account  for 
a  deer-hunter  in  these  here  hills,  an'  I  kinder 
b'lieve  hit  keeps  a  feller's  heart  stiddy  an'  his 
blood  pure  for  to  nibble  an'  browse  kinder 
like  a  deer  does.  You  know  a  deer  is  allus 
strong  an'  active,  an'  hit  is  everlastin'ly  a- 
nibblin'  an'  a-browsin'.  Ef  hit's  good  for  the 
annymel  hit  orter  be  good  for  the  feller." 

This  philosophy  immediately  gained  a  lodg- 
ment in  my  mind.  I  delightedly  took  up  the 
seeds  of  suggestion  let  fall  by  the  strong- 
limbed,  steady-nerved  mountaineer,  and  forced 
them  to  rapid  quickening  and  utmost  growth. 
The  old  alchemists  in  their  search  for  the 
elixir  of  life  ought  to  have  known  that  the 
birds  and  the  animals  of  the  wild  woods  had 
long  ago  discovered  it.  How  many  sick  deer, 
or  bears,  or  partridges,  have  ever  been  found 
by  hunters  or  woodsmen  ?  For  twenty  years,  as 
boy  and  man,  I  have  been  an  untiring  and  per- 
sistent roamer  in  the  wildest  nooks  and  cor- 
ners of  our  American  forests  ;  and  during  this 
period,  I  have  never  found  a  deer,  a  bear,  a 
squirrel,  a  turkey,  a  grouse,  a  quail,  or  any 


96  BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-AZOTES. 

wild  bird,  suffering  from  any  fatal  ailment 
other  than  wounds.  When  their  food  is 
plentiful  all  kinds  of  wild  things  thrive.  Of 
course,  when  unusually  hard  winters  come, 
and  food  cannot  be  found,  the  non-migratory 
birds  and  animals  suffer,  often  to  death,  from 
hunger  and  cold.  But  this  is  accident  rather 
than  anything  else.  Take  a  healthy  child  into 
the  woods,  and  see  how  naturally  and  surely  it 
will  fall  to  nibbling  at  the  buds,  and  bark,  and 
roots  of  things.  There  seems  to  be  an  innate 
hunger  for  this  sort  of  food,  lying  dormant  in 
every  human  being  until  called  into  activity  by 
some  association,  accident,  or  exigency. 

Now,  I  am  not  going  into  the  dear  old 
theory  of  the  botanical  doctors  touching  na- 
ture's remedies  for  man's  ailments.  I  am  not 
a  physician,  and  I  favor  no  special  school  of 
medicine.  But  I  do  maintain  that  it  is  good 
for  man — and  woman,  too — to  nibble  and 
browse.  Go  bite  the  bud  of  the  spice-wood, 
or  the  bark  of  the  sassafras,  and  tell  me 
whether  you  feel  a  new  element  slip  into  your 
nature.  No  sooner  do  you  taste  for  the  first 
time  this  wild,  racy  flavor,  than  you  recognize 
its  perfect  adaptation  to  a  need  of  your  life. 
Nor  is  this  need  a  mere  physical  one.  Some- 
how the  fragrance  and  flavor  that  satisfy  it 
reach  the  thought-generating  part  of  one,  and 
tinge  one's  imagination  and  fancy  with  new 
colors. 

I  remember,  with  a  steady  delight,  some  days 
spent  with  the  ginseng-diggers  of  North  Car- 
olina. It  was  there  that  I  first  tasted  this 
celebrated  American  root,  and  discovered  a  lik- 
ing for  its  charming,  aromatic  bitter-sweetness. 
No  wonder  the  Chinese  prized  it  above  gold  ! 


BROWSING  AND  NIBBLING.  97 

These  ginseng-diggers — or  "  sang-diggers," 
as  they  are  called — are  queer  folk  ;  very  inter- 
esting in  a  way,  ignorant,  superstitious,  strong, 
stingy,  and  honest — a  sort  of  mountain  tribe 
to  themselves.  I  followed  a  company  of  them 
around  the  jutting  cliffs  and  fertile  "  benches  " 
of  the  Carolina  mountain  region,  until  I  really 
had  grown  to  like  their  careless,  nomadic  life, 
with  its  flavor  of  chestnuts  and  ginseng.  In 
the  spring  is  the  time  for  browsing;  in  the 
autumn  comes  the  nibbling  season.  The 
squirrels  begin  eating  the  buds  of  the  hickory 
trees  so  soon  as  the  sap  has  risen  into  them 
sufficiently  to  make  them  swell.  Your  know- 
ing squirrel-hunter  cleans  up  his  rifle  about 
this  time,  and  visits  every  hickory  tree  in  his 
neighborhood.  Somewhat  later  the  grand 
tulip  trees  begin  blooming,  and  then  the  squir- 
rels transfer  their  attention  to  them.  A  few 
weeks  of  browsing  in  the  spring  woods  will 
make  one  acquainted  with  the  characteristic 
taste  and  fragrance  of  almost  every  tree,  shrub, 
and  plant  of  the  region. 

True,  there  are  a  few — very  few  indeed — 
poisonous  things,  and  these  must  be  avoided. 
Nature  has  her  evil  streaks,  running  at  wide 
intervals  through  her  opulence  of  good  ;  but 
they  are  easily  discoverable.  Who  would 
ever  be  so  obtuse  to  danger  as  to  nibble  at  the 
buds  of  the  poison  ivy  ?  This  browsing-time 
is  also  the  season  of  our  sweetest  and  most 
charming  flowers.  While  one  is  biting  through 
pungent  barks  and  aromatic  buds,  one  also 
gets  the  benefit  of  perfumes  as  wild  and  witch- 
ing as  are  the  blooms  from  which  they  exhale. 
I  do  not  know  how  to  explain  the  influence  of 
the  bitters  and  sweets,  the  acids  and  sub-acids, 
7 


98  BY-WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

the  aromas  and  perfumes  of  wild  things ;  nor 
am  I  sure  that  explanation  would  be  profitable, 
if  possible.  To  taste  the  perfectly  distilled 
honey  that  lurks  in  the  red-clover  bloom  is  a 
sufficient  demonstration  of  this  influence.  A 
subtle  thrill,  elusive  as  it  is  fascinating,  follows 
the  touch  of  the  tongue  to  this  infinitesimal 
philter.  It  was  made  for  the  bumblebee  ;  but 
your  pastoral  man  may  profit  by  the  insect's 
example.  If  Rossetti,  while  bending  over  a 
woodspurge,  had  been  less  an  artist  and  more 
a  poet  and  philosopher,  he  might  have  dis- 
covered more  than  he  expresses  in  : — 

"  One  thing  then  learnt  remains  to  me, — 
The  woodspurge  has  a  cup  of  three." 

Compare  the  flowers  of  Tennyson  and  Keats 
with  those  of  Baudelaire — 

"  Des  fleurs  se  pament  dans  un  coin" — 

and  the  whole  fearful  difference  between  the 
sweets  of  nature  and  the  filth  and  rottenness 
where  those  sweets  are  wanting,  will  rush  upon 
your  consciousness.  There  is  something  more 
than  the  mere  shimmer  of  rhetoric  in  Virgil's 

"  Turn  silvis  scena  coruscis 
Desuper,  horrentique  atrum  nemus  imminet  umbra." 

There  is  in  the  words  a  suggestion  of  what 
woodsy  freshness  and  fragrance,  of  what  spices 
and  resins,  that  grove  may  hold.  Howells 
brings  to  mind  the  same  possibilities  when, 
in  his  poem  called  "  Vagary,"  he  sings — 

"  Deep  in  my  heart  the  vision  is, 
Of  meadow  grass  and  meadow  trees 
Blown  silver  in  the  summer  breeze." 

There  is  a  smack  of  browsing  in  such  a  verse 
as — 


BROWSING  AND  NIBBLING.  99 

"  But  in  my  heart  I  feel  the  life  of   the   wood   and  the 
meadow." 

And  when  Keats  forgets  the  Greek  myths  and 
turns  to  pastoral  memories,  how  true  and  fresh 
and  fine  his  note  ; — 

"  I  cannot  see  what  flowers  are  at  my  feet, 

Nor  what  soft  incense  hangs  upon  the  boughs ; 
But,  in  embalmed  darkness,  guess  each  sweet 
Wherewith  the  seasonable  month  endows 
The  grass,  the  thicket,  the  fruit-tree  wild." 

But  we  poor  clay  mortals,  who  have  never 
been  able  to  get  within  the  charmed  life  of  the 
poets,  can  have  our  sip  of  honey-dew,  and  our 
morsel  of  wild  balsamic  resin,  our  mouthful  of 
pungent  buds,  and  our  taste  of  aromatic  roots, 
notwithstanding  our  coarse  natures,  just  as 
well  as  these  successors  of  the  gods.  Still,  I 
fancy  that  it  is  the  literary  man  and  the  artist 
who  get  the  most  out  of  our  out-door  browsing 
and  nibbling.  Wild  plums  and  haws  and  ber- 
ries, papaws,  nuts,  grapes,  and  all  the  fruits  of 
ungardened  nature,  have  something  in  them  to 
feed  originality.  One  cannot  chew  a  bit  of 
slippery-elm  bark  without  acknowledging  the 
racy  charm  of  nature  at  first  hand.  Children 
like  all  these  things,  because  their  tastes  are 
pure  and  natural.  Poets  like  them,  because 
poets  are  grown-up  children.  Painters  like 
them,  because  painters  affect  to  interpret 
poetry  and  nature.  Clods,  like  you  and  me, 
reader,  like  them,  because  they  are  racy  and 
good ;  because  they  take  out  of  our  mouths 
the  taste  of  artificial  food,  and  because  they 
seem  to  strengthen  our  connection  with  un- 
trimmed  and  uncultured  nature.  They  are,  in 
their  way  of  laying  hold  on  our  taste,  like  the 
poetic  myths  of  the  Greeks.  They  cloy  for  a 


loo          B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

time,  but  when  their  season  comes  round  again 
the  zest  comes  too 

Was  it  not  Adonis,  as  Shakespeare  has  it,  to 
whom  the  birds — 

"  Would  bring  mulberries,  and  ripe  red  cherries  "? 

To  me  the  flavor  of  our  American  wild  cher- 
ries has  always  been  especially  alluring.  So, 
too,  the  service-berries,  with  their  wild  red 
wine,  have  tempted  me  to  many  a  dangerous 
feat  of  climbing.  Often  in  the  dense  huckle- 
berry swamps  of  the  South  I  have  refused  to 
be  frightened  from  my  purple  feast  even  by 
the  keen  whir  of  the  rattlesnake's  tail,  though 
the  deadly  sound  would  make  my  faithful  dog 
desert  me  in  cowardly  haste. 

Along  the  banks  of  the  streams  of  Georgia 
and  South  Carolina  grows  a  grape,  known  by 
the  musical  name  of  muscadine,  which  I  esteem 
as  altogether  the  wildest  and  raciest  of  all 
wild  fruit.  Its  juice  has  the  musty  taste  of 
old  wine  along  with  a  strange  aromatic  quality 
peculiarly  its  own.  On  splendid  moonlight 
nights  I  have  swung  in  the  muscadine  vines, 
slowly  feasting  on  the  great  purple  globes, 
while  the  raccoons  fought  savagely  in  the  trees 
hard  by,  and  a  clear  river  gently  murmured 
below.  Next  to  the  muscadine  among  wild 
fruits  I  rate  the  papaw  as  best.  It  is  gen- 
uinely wild,  rich,  racy,  and,  to  me,  palatable 
and  digestible.  I  once  sent  a  box  of  papaws 
to  a  great  Boston  author,  whose  friendship  I 
chanced  to  possess,  and  was  much  disap- 
pointed to  learn  that  the  musty  odor  of  the 
fruit  was  very  distasteful  to  him.  He  fancied 
that  the  papaws  were  rotten  !  I  dare  say  he 
never  tasted  them  ;  and  if  he  had,  their  flavor 


BROWSING  AND  NIB'S  LING.  101 

would  have  been  too  rank  and  savage  for  his 
endurance.  : 

The  gums  and  resins  of  our  woods  are  few. 
The  sweet-gum,  or  liquid  amber,  is  the  only 
genuinely  fine  morsel  of  the  sort  to  be  found 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  United  States. 
It  is  a  clear  amber  fluid  (flowing  from  any  cut 
or  wound  in  the  tree),  which  soon  hardens  into 
a  stiff,  translucent  yellow  wax,  possessing  a 
pleasing  aromatic  taste  and  odor,  strangely 
fascinating.  One  does  not  care  to  eat  it ;  but, 
once  a  lump  of  it  goes  into  one's  mouth,  one 
chews  it  until  one's  jaws  are  tired.  I  remem- 
ber, when  I  was  a  very  little  child,  going  to  a 
backwoods  school  in  Missouri,  where  all  the 
pupils,  both  great  and  small,  would  chew 
liquid  amber  from  morning  till  night;  the 
teacher  chewed  tobacco. 

Browsing  and  nibbling  has  led  me  to  taste 
the  inner  bark  of  -nearly  every  kind  of  tree 
growing  in  American  woods.  The  hickory 
tree  has  a  sap  almost  as  sweet  as  that  of  the 
maple,  but  it  mingles  with  the  sweet  a  pun- 
gency and  a  slightly  acrid  element  of  taste  at 
once  pleasing  and  repellent  to  the  pampered 
tongue.  The  oaks  have  much  tannin  in  their 
bark,  the  astringency  of  which  draws  one's 
lips  like  green  persimmons ;  but  the  very 
innermost  part,  next  the  wood,  is  slightly 
mucilaginous  and  faintly  sweet.  Speaking  of 
persimmons — after  a  few  sharp  frosts  this 
wild  fruit  becomes  mellow  and  rich,  but  to  the 
last  retains  a  certain  drawing  quality,  a  trace 
of  that  astringency  already  mentioned,  which 
keeps  it  from  being  a  favorite,  save  with  the 
opossums. 

There  is  no  other  woodland  influence,  how- 


102  B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

ever,  so  strong  and  fine  as  the  perfumes,  odors, 
and  aromas.  Of  these  each  season  has  its 
own — the  perfume  of  spring  flowers,  the  odors 
of  summer  mosses  and  sweet  punk,  the  aroma 
of  buds  and  barks  and  gums.  Even  in  mid- 
winter, when  a  warm  time  comes,  and  the 
snow  melts,  and  the  ground  is  thoroughly 
thawed,  there  are  woodsy  odors  borne  about 
by  the  drowsy  winds.  In  fact,  the  fragrance 
of  January  is  sweeter  and  more  subtly  elusive 
than  that  of  May.  Go  nibble  the  brown, 
pointed  buds  of  the  beech  tree  in  midwinter, 
and  you  will  find  how  well  the  individuality  of 
the  trees  is  condensed  in  those  laminated  little 
spikes.  You  taste  the  perfume  of  tassels  and 
the  fragrance  of  young  leaves ;  there  is  an 
aromatic  hint  of  coming  nuts.  You  may  almost 
taste  the  songs  of  the  spring  birds!  What 
words  these  buds  are  !  How  prophetic ! 
We  bite  them,  and,  lo  !  the  spring  rises  in  a 
vision  !  Its  poem  is  read  in  advance. 

I  recollect  a  clear  fountain  of  cold  water 
around  which  grew  festoons  of  cress  and 
mint.  I  had  been  chasing  the  wild  things 
all  the  morning,  as  a  true  huntsman  will, 
and  now  I  was  tired  and  thirsty.  At  such 
a  time  what  could  be  more  welcome  than 
mint  and  water  ?  How  soothing  the  fragrant 
flavor  and  the  cooling  draught !  Then  came 
the  biting  spiciness  of  the  cress,  to  reinvigor- 
ate  my  nerve  withal.  Out  of  my  pouch  I  drew 
a  cake  of  maple  sugar,  and  feasted  like  a  god. 

When  winter  begins  to  come  on,  the  nuts 
come  too.  I  cannot  understand  the  taste  of 
those  who  do  not  like  the  rich  oily  kernels 
of  the  butternut,  the  hickory  nut,  and  the 
sweet  acorns  of  the  pine  oak.  Squirrels  know 


BROWSING  AND  NIBBLING.  103 

which  side  of  a  nut  is  buttered.  They  have 
long  ago  learned  that  it  is  the  inside.  From 
Florida  to  Michigan  one  may  run  the  gamut  of 
nuts,  beginning  with  the  lily-nuts,  or  water 
chinquepins,  and  running  up  to  the  great 
black-walnut,  including  every  shade  of  flavor 
and  fatness.  They  are  all  good.  They  were 
made  to  eat  in  the  open  air  ;  and  he  who  takes 
them,  as  the  squirrels  do,  after  vigorous  ex- 
ercise in  the  woods,  will  find  great  comfort  in 
them.  I  cannot  rank  the  artist  or  poet  very 
high  whose  stomach  is  too  aristocratic  for 
wild  berries,  nuts,  and  aromatic  bark.  I  fear 
that  such  an  one  has  long  since  allowed 
that  trace  of  savage  vigor,  which  made  him 
of  kin  to  Pan  and  Apollo,  to  slip  away  and  be 
lost.  Shall  we  doubt  that  Burns  got  his  sweet 
strength  and  freshness,  in  a  great  measure, 
out  of  the  cool,  fragrant  loam  his  ploughshare 
turned  ?  The  gracious  ways  of  nature  are  so 
simple  and  so  manifold.  She  gives  up  to  us 
by  such  subtle  vehicles  of  conveyance  the 
precious  essences  of  suggestion.  She  draws 
us  back  from  overculture  to  renew  our  virility 
with  her  simples.  She  gives  us  dew  instead 
of  philosophy,  perfumes  instead  of  science, 
flowers  in  place  of  art,  fruit  in  lieu  of  lectures, 
and  nuts  instead  of  sermons. 

In  the  manifest  life  of  an  individual  no  ele- 
ment is  so  pleasing  as  that  trace  of  force 
which  suggests  his  kinship  to  wild  nature. 
Out  of  this  springs  a  sweet  stream  of  originality 
and  freshness,  a  sincerity  and  outrightness  of 
thought  and  action,  of  great  value  per  se.  I 
have  met  men  whose  talk  was  spicy  and  aro- 
matic ;  from  whose  lips  simple  words  fell  with  a 
new,  racy  meaning.  Their  thoughts  were  red- 


1 04          BY- WA YS  A ND  BIRD-NO TES. 

olent  of  the  odors  and  essences  of  buds  and 
flowers,  and  sweet,  mossy  solitudes.  Theirs 
had  been  the  oil  of  nuts  instead  of  the  oil  of 
the  lamp. 

There  is  no  safety  in  culture  if  it  leads  to 
artificiality.  There  must  be  a  safety-valve  to 
any  high-pressure  system,  social,  moral,  or  in- 
tellectual. The  connection  with  the  sources 
of  nature  must  be  kept  perfect.  Poetry, 
painting,  sculpture,  and  all  the  cognate  ele- 
ments of  high  education  and  sweet  intellectual 
attainment,  must  become  mere  manifestations 
of  a  diseased  fancy  and  imagination  whenever 
this  connection  shall  be  permanently  severed. 
It  matters  little  by  what  slender  streams  na- 
ture feeds  us,  so  that  we  get  the  food  at  first 
hand.  History  seems  to  teach  us  that  utter 
artificiality  is  the  forerunner  of  decadence.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  the  flowering  time  of  a  peo- 
ple's youth  come  their  geniuses.  England 
can  have  no  Shakespeare  now,  Germany  no 
Goethe,  Italy  no  Dante.  Culture  has  gone 
too  far.  The  wires  are  down  between  nature 
and  the  leaders  of  fashion  in  fine  art.  True, 
we  have  the  microscope  in  the  hands  of  hun- 
dreds of  analysts  and  fact-gatherers ;  but  this 
serves  only  the  turn  of  the  men  who  despise 
every  element  of  nature  that  cannot  be  con- 
trolled for  the  furtherance  of  the  demands  of 
artificial  life. 

Reader,  let  us  go  out  occasionally  to  browse 
and  nibble,  and  gather  the  savage  sweets  of 
primeval  things ;  to  revel  in  the  crude  mate- 
rials of  creation  ;  to  get  the  essential  oils,  the 
spices,  the  fragrance,  the  pungent  elements 
of  originality. 


OUT-DOOR  INFLUENCES  IN 
LITERATURE. 

THE  earth  is  the  great  reservoir  of  phys- 
ical forces,  and  whilst  no  scientist  has  yet 
been  able  to  discover  kow  intimate  or  how  per- 
fect is  the  connection  between  the  mental  and 
the  physical,  there  exists,  no  doubt,  a  correla- 
tion between  the  processes  by  which  the  body 
and  the  soul  are  kept  healthy  and  vigorous  by 
draughts  on  the  great  reserves  of  Nature. 
One  grows  tired  of  books  and  cloyed  with  all 
manner  of  art.  Then  comes  a  hunger  and  a 
thirst  for  Nature.  Real  thought-gathering  is 
like  berry-gathering — one  must  go  to  the  wild 
vines  for  the  racy-flavored  fruit.  Art  and  Na- 
ture are_  really  the  antipodes  of  each  other — 
one  is  original,  the  other  second-hand.  When 
we  go  from  the  library  or  the  studio  to  the 
woods  and  fields,  we  go  to  get  back  what 
Art  has  robbed  us  of — the  freshness  of  Nature. 
Art  presents  compositions ;  Nature  offers  the 
original  elements.  The  suggestions  of  Nature 
come,  as  the  flowers  and  leaves  and  breezes 
come — out  of  the  mysterious,  invisible  gener- 
ator ;  but  Art  merely  reflects  its  suggestions 
back  upon  Nature. 

What  genuine  poet  or  novelist  has  not  caught 
his  charmingest  conceits  from  some  subtle  and 
indescribable  influence  of  out-door  things  ? 
In- door  poets,  like  Dante  G.  Rossetti,  always 
lack  the  dewy  freshness  of  Helicon,  the  thymy 
fragrance  of  Hybla,  no  matter  how  much  of 


1 06          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

the  true  maker's  labor  limes,  may  appear  in 
their  works.  Even  Poe  and  Hawthorne  dis- 
close too  heavy  a  trace  of  the  must  and  mould 
of  the  closet.  Each  stands  alone,  inimitable, 
in  his  field,  but  lacking  that  balmy,  odorous 
freshness  of  the  morning  woods  and  pastures, 
when  the  convolvulus  and  the  violet  are  in 
bloom.  We  should  have  little  faith  in  the 
bird-song  described  by  either  one  of  those 
wizards  of  romance. 

"  The  skies  they  were  ashen  and  sober, 
The  leaves  they  were  crisped  and  sere," 

in  all  their  works.  Cheerfulness  and  enthusi- 
asm have  always  seemed  to  me  to  belong  of 
right  to  the  best  genius.  Shakespeare  exempli- 
fies it ;  the  sublime  audacity  of  Napoleon  I. 
instances  it.  But  Shakespeare  was  a  poacher, 
and  Napoleon  loved  to  dwell  out  of  doors.  I 
hold  that  communion  with  Nature  generates 
lofty  ideas,  feeds  noble  ambitions.  The  only 
way  to  lengthen  a  yard-measure  is  to  gauge 
each  new  length  of  cloth  by  the  preceding  one, 
and  not  by  the  yardstick.  The  growth  will  be 
slow,  but  amazingly  sure.  So  in  Art,  if  we 
cast  aside  the  standards  and  permit  such  ac- 
cretion as  Nature  suggests. 

But  there  must  be  some  excuse  for  going 
out  alone  with  Nature  other  than  the  avowed 
purpose  of  filching  her  secrets  and  accumulat- 
ing her  suggestions ;  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
nearly  or  quite  all  of  the  available  literary  or 
artistic  materials  caught  from  her  great  reser- 
voirs come  without  the  asking,  and  at  the 
moment  when  they  are  least  expected.  Then, 
too,  the  human  mind  seems  to  have  no  volun- 
tary receptivity.  The  power  of  taking  in  new 


INFL  UENCES  IN  LITER  A  TURE.        1 07 

elements  seems  most  active  in  the  brain  when 
the  pleasurable  excitement  of  a  rational  pas- 
time is  upon  it.  The  artist  is  often  surprised, 
while  aimlessly  sketching  in  the  presence  of 
Nature  ;  at  the  sudden  coming  on  of  a  genu- 
ine "  inspiration" — a  suggestion  leaping  out 
of  some  accidental  touch,  or  out  of  some  elu- 
sive, shadowy  change  in  the  phases  of  things. 

The  direct  study  of  Nature  is  dry,  and  its  re- 
sults, however  useful  and  entertaining,  far  from 
satisfactory  from  a  literary  or  artistic  stand- 
point. As  one  can  see  an  object  better  in  the 
night  by  not  looking  straight  at  it,  so  the  in- 
direct view  of  Nature  is  best  for  the  discovery 
of  those  inspiring  morsels  upon  which  the  gods 
used  to  feed,  and  with  which  the  poet,  the 
novelist,  and  the  painter  of  to-day  delight  to 
stimulate  themselves.  But  the  gods  were  hunt- 
ers and  athletes,  as  well  as  lyrists  and  song- 
sters. They  bent  the  bow  with  as  much  ease 
and  delight  as  they  blew  in  the  hollow  reed  or 
thrummed  on  the  stringed  shell.  They  robbed 
the  wild  bees  of  their  honey,  and  chased  the 
deer  over  the  hills ;  they  followed  the  streams 
of  Arcadia,  and  haunted  the  fountains  and 
glens  of  both  Italy  and  Greece.  The  poets  are 
said  to  be  the  successors  of  the  gods.  The 
gums  and  resins,  the  spices  and  saps,  the  per- 
fumes and  subtle  essences  of  Nature  make  their 
nectar  and  ambrosia.  It  is  the  presence  of 
this  flavor  of  Nature  that  discloses  the  work  of 
a  genuine  genius.  No  amount  of  cunning  arti- 
sanship  can  create,  it  can  only  build.  Genius 
works  with  animate  materials  and  essences  ; 
its 

"  Conscious  stones  to  beauty  grow." 


io8          B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

In  a  bit  of  verse  I  once  tried  to  express  my 
idea  of  the  true  poet : — 

"  He  is  a  poet  strong  and  true 
Who  loves  wild  thyme  and  honey-dew, 
Who,  like  a  brown  bee,  works  and  sings, 
With  morning  freshness  on  his  wings, 
And  a  gold  burden  on  his  thighs, 
The  pollen-dust  of  centuries." 

This  pollen-dust  is  to  be  found  in  the  old 
woods  as  well  as  in  the  old  books.  .  The 
flowers  of  poesy  are  but  impressionist  sketches 
of  the  flowers  of  Nature.  The  little  bloom  of 
the  partridge-berry  has  sweeter  perfume  than 
any  lyric  of  Theocritus  or  Horace.  From  the 
proper  point  of  view  the  big,  vigorous  flower 
of  the  tulip-tree  is  as  full  of  racy,  unused  sug- 
gestions as  it  is  of  stamens.  Virgil  and  Ten- 
nyson, Theocritus  and  Emerson,  Sappho  and 
Keats,  have  filled  their  songs  with  the  most 
delicately  elusive  elements  of  Nature  caught 
from  out-door  life.  They  are  the  half-dozen 
poets  of  the  world  who  have  come  near  in 
their  work  to  the  methods  of  the  bee.  The 
honey-cell  and  the  poem  are  of  divine  art — the 
honey  and  the  idea  of  the  poem  are  of  divine 
nature.  Rossetti  and  Poe  builded  lovely  cells, 
but  they  had  no  wild-flower  honey  with  which 
to  fill  them ;  theirs  was  a  marvellous  nectar, 
but  it  was  gathered  from  books  and  art.  "  Vol- 
umes of  forgotten  lore  "  served  them,  instead 
of  brooks,  and  fields,  and  woods,  and  birds, 
and  flowers. 

Now,  literature  is  not  the  whole  of  life, 
nor  is  the  study  of  Nature  the  whole  secret  of 
literary  inspiration.  But  recreation  of  body 
and  mind  is  drawn  from  obscure  and  various 


INFL  UENCES  IN  LITER  A  TURE.         109 

sources,  and  the  well-rounded  genius  seems  to 
feed  itself  upon  Nature  much  more  than  upon 
books.  A  book  is  most  useful  as  a  literary 
helper,  when  it  may  be  used  as  a  glass  with 
which  to  better  view  Nature.  I  would  not  be 
understood  as  saying  that  all  worthy  literature 
is  or  should  be  a  mere  interpretation  of  out- 
door life  ;  far  from  it.  Out-door  life,  I  may 
say,  furnishes  the  inspiration,  the  enthusiasm, 
the  freshness.  It  furnishes  the  water  for  the 
clay,  it  gives  the  hand  its  certainty,  the  mind 
its  new  leases  upon  youth.  It  does  not  make 
the  mind  nor  the  hand ;  it  merely  informs 
them  with  the  creative  effluence  of  Nature,  as 
Thoreau  would  express  it.  It  has  a  fertilizing 
power — this  lonely  communion  with  the  out- 
door forms  of  life — which  one  may  trace  in  the 
best  works  of  the  geniuses  of  all  ages.  Pan, 
when  he  pursued  the  flying  Syrinx,  and  at  last 
clasped  an  armful  of  reeds  instead  of  the 
nymph,  very  accurately  typified  the  poet.  He 
took  the  reeds  and  made  of  them  his  pipe. 
He  had  caught  the  idea  of  music  from  the 
sounds  of  the  rustling  leaves  and  stems.  If 
you  would  like  to  fully  understand  the  mean- 
ing of  this  myth  of  Pan  and  Syrinx  go  clasp 
an  armful  of  wild  green  reeds  and  hold  your 
ear  close  to  them.  You  will  hear  the  sound 
of  washing  seas  and  rippling  rivers  and  flow- 
ing breezes  all  blending  together  ;  voices  from 
vast  distances  and  snatches  of  immemorial 
song  will  come  to  you.  Like  Pan  you  will 
long  for  a  pipe,  that  you  may  express  what 
has  been  suggested  to  you  by  the  reeds. 

Awhile  ago  I  said  that  direct,  conscious 
study  of  Nature  was  not  best  for  gathering 
those  impressions  most  valuable  to  the  poet 


1 1  o          B  Y-  WA  YS  A  ND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

and  artist.  Thoreau  is  a  striking  example  of 
a  poet  spoiled  by  this  direct  study.  Compare 
his  poetry  with  that  of  Keats  or  Tennyson  or 
Emerson,  and  it  will  be  discovered  that  his  ob- 
vious attitudinizing  before  Nature  prevents 
him  from  appearing  sincere,  simple,  and  fresh 
in  his  conceits.  It  seems  that  the  available 
material  which  one  gets  from  Nature,  save 
for  scientific  purposes,  must  be  received  aslant, 
so  to  speak — must  be  discovered  by  indirect 
vision — and  while  one  is  looking  for  some- 
thing else.  Thus  while  Thoreau  was  besieg- 
ing Nature  for  her  poetic  essences,  he  failed  to 
find  them,  though  Keats  had  stumbled  upon 
them  apparently  by  accident* 

"  What  melodies  are  these  ? 
They  sound  as  through  the  whispering  of  trees." 

If  ever  the  songs  of  a  poet 

"  Come  as  through  bubbling  honey," 
and 

"In  trammels  of  perverse  deliciousness," 

the  songs  of  Keats  did,  and  in  them  we  may 
find  in  the  best  measure  the  influences  of  the 
indirect  study  of  Nature. 

Now,  there  are  few  persons  who,  like  Keats, 
will  absorb  these  influences  without  some  stim- 
ulus other  than  the  poet's  love  of  solitude ; 
nor  is  solitude  for  its  own  sake  wholesome. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  inimical  to  healthy  phys- 
ical and  mental  development.  Keats*  might 
have  lived  to  finish  all  his  "  divine  fragments  " 
if  he  had  been  an  enthusiastic  canoeist,  archer, 
or  bicyclist.  He  died  of  consumption  at  the 
age  of  twenty-five  years !  If  William  Cullen 


INFL  UENCES  IN  LITER A  TURE.        1 1 1 

Bryant  had  possessed  Keats's  genius,  of  if 
Keats  had  had  Bryant's  physique  !  Think  of 
the  boy-author  of  Endymion  singing  till  he  was 
eighty  !  And  yet  such  a  thing  might  be  if 
recreation  were  regular  and  judicious.  If 
Keats  were  alive  to-day  he  would  not  be  ninety 
years  old,  and  yet  his  poems  have  been  classics 
for  more  than  sixty  years. 

The  study  of  Nature,  as  I  have  said,  should 
be  indirect,  in  order  to  perfect  recreation. 
Some  cheerful  sport,  to  absorb  one's  direct  at- 
tention, is  the  best  aid  to  the  end  in  view,  and 
to  my  mind  the  best  sport  is  that  which  neces- 
sarily takes  one  into  the  woods  and  along  the 
streams,  where  wild  flowers  blow  and  wild 
birds  sing,  and  where  the  flavor  of  sap  and  the 
fragrance  of  gums  and  resins  are  in  the 
breezes.  If  I  were  a  poet  I  think  I  should  be 
one  of  that  class  described  as 

"  Poets,  a  race  long  unconfined  and  free, 
Still  fond  and  proud  of  savage  liberty." 

I  could  not  be  the  one  of  the  garret  and 
the  crust ;  better  a  hollow  tree  and  locusts  and 
wild  honey.  The  redeeming  feature  of  Walt 
Whitman's  deservedly  tabooed,  and  yet  deserv- 
edly admired,  Leaves  of  Grass,  is  the  sweet, 
ever-recurring  wood-note,  the  sincere  voice  of 
Nature,  half  strangled  as  it  is  in  incoherent 
sounds — a  feature  that  affects  one  like  the 
notes  of  a  wood-thrush  heard  in  the  depths  of 
a  dismal,  swampy  hollow.  Too  much  time 
spent  in  the  streets  and  crowds  of  the  cities — 
too  much  knowledge  of  the  brutal  side  of  life 
— has  given  us  a  Whitman,  a  Baudelaire,  and 
a  Zola.  Too  much  knowledge  of  Nature  gave 
us  a  Thoreau.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  so 


ii2          BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

soon  as  a  people  have  grown  beyond  the  study 
and  the  love  of  out-door  nature,  their  literature 
begins  to  be  what  French  literature  now  is — 
a  literature  without  any  true  poetry.  Daudet, 
for  instance,  is  a  poet,  but  he  cannot  make 
poetry.  His  novels  are  spiced  with  intrigues 
and  immoralities,  instead  of  with  the  flavor  of 
out-door  life.  Zola  sees  nothing  but  the 
tragedies  of  the  gutter  and  the  brothel.  Ke 
never  dreams  of  green  fields  and  melodious 
woods  ;  he  finds  nothing  worthy  of  his  art  in 
rural  scenes  or  in  honest,  earnest  life.  He 
never  goes  into  solitude  with  Nature.  The  lit- 
erature of  England,  from  Chaucer  down  to 
Dickens  and  William  Black,  is  full  of  the  fra- 
grance, so  to  speak,  of  out-door  life,  and  it  will 
be  so  as  long  as  the  English  man  and  the 
English  woman  remain  true  to  their  love  of 
all  kinds  of  open-air  pastimes.  The  deer,  the 
pheasant,  the  blackcock,  the  trout,  and  the 
fox,  have  done  much  to  fence  the  poetry  and 
fiction  or  our  mother-country  against  the 
French  tendencies  and  influences. 

But  American  literature  is  beginning  to 
feel,  in  a  certain  way,  the  effect  of  much  love 
of  Parisian  manners.  Henry  James,  Jr.,  who 
just  now  leads  our  novelists,  is  much  more 
French  than  American  or  English  in  his  liter- 
ary methods.  His  theory  is,  that  the  aim  of 
the  novelist  is  to  represent  life  ;  but  he  no- 
where recognizes  "  out-doors  "  or  out-of-doors 
things  as  a  part  of  life.  Life  to  him  means 
fashionable,  social  life — nothing  more.  The 
life  of  which  Hawthorne  wrote  is^asse'to  him. 
From  his  stand-point  he  is  right.  If  realism, 
as  the  critics  now  define  it,  is  a  genuine  revo- 
lution in  literature,  it  may  be  a  long  while  be- 


1NFL  UENCES  IN  LITER  A  TURE.        1 1 3 

fore  any  otherfiction  than  Mr.  James's  very 
pleasant  sort  will  be  in  demand.  He  is  master 
of  his  method,  and  has  made  the  most  of  his 
theory.  But,  without  finding  fault  with  Mr. 
James's  charming  novels,  it  may  be  asked  if 
they  would  not  be  better  were  it  possible  for 
the  author  to  inject  into  them  something  of 
William  Black's  knowledge  of  out-door  things, 
and  to  give  them  the  color  and  atmosphere  de. 
manded  by  the  places  where  their  scenes  are 
laid.  Social  atmosphere  he  does  give  to  per- 
fection ;  but  of  the  air  his  people  breathe  he 
knows  nothing.  He  never  sets  his  story  in  a 
landscape  ;  its  entourage  is  always  an  artificial 
one  ;  he  frames  it,  like  an  artist,  with  a  frame  ex- 
actly suited  to  its  tone  ;  but  it  would  look  as 
well  in  one  place  as  another.  In  reading  his 
stones  we  are  thoroughly  charmed,  and  would 
not  know  where  to  change  a  word  ;  but  we 
know  all  along  that  we  are  reading  a  story. 
He  does  not  take  us  away  from  the  spot  where 
we  are  reading ;  but  he  chains  us  to  our  chair 
with  the  spell  of  his  "  representations  of  life  " 
until  the  end  is  reached. 

Now,  a  little  different  treatment  would 
change  all  this.  The  color  and  the  atmosphere 
of  the  place  should  be  added,  as  with  the  brush 
of  the  painter,  so  that  we  would  find  ourselves 
on  the  spot,  feel  the  air,  smell  the  perfumes, 
see  the  varied  features  of  the  region  round 
about,  as  well  as  talk  with  the  people  and 
share  their  life.  Let  it  be  understood  that  I 
do  not  criticise  Mr.  James.  He  is  a  prince  of 
novelists.  I  merely  attempt  to  show  that  he 
might  add  to  his  charming  stories  the  freshness 
of  the  breezes,  the  bird-songs,  and  the  flowers, 
8 


H4          BY-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

without  abating  in  the  least  his  placid  realism 
or  endangering  his  reputation  for  merciless 
analysis. 

But  even  so  delicately  refined  a  novelist  as 
Mr.  James  loses  less  by  the  lack  of  a  knowl- 
edge of  out-door  things  than  does  the  least  of 
minor  poets.  The  singer  must  not,  cannot, 
rely  upon  any  other  reserve  than  Nature, 
from  which  to  draw  the  freshness  and  racy 
flavor  that  every  true  poem  must  have.  Still 
it  must  be  remembered  that  mere  descriptive 
writing,  no  matter  how  true  to  Nature,  is  not 
what  gives  that  "  smack  of  Helicon  "  of  which 
Mr.  Lowell  speaks.  The  true  critical  test  is 
one  that  will  discover  any  trace  of  the  simplic- 
ity, the  artlessness,  and  the  self-sufficiency  of 
Nature.  Whatever  is  truly  fresh  and  original 
in  literature  will  be  found  to  contain  something 
not  acquired  from  books,  nor  from  observation 
of  society,  nor  yet  from  introspection ;  this 
comes,  one  might  say,  from  the  soil  and  the 
air  by  a  growth  like  that  of  the  flowers.  I  be- 
lieve it  is  due,  in  nearly  every  case,  to  out- 
door recreation.  It  is  felt  on  almost  every 
page  of  Emerson,  Tennyson,  and  William 
Black,  and  it  is  just  as  charming  in  a  story 
like  A  Princess  of  Thule,  as  it  is  in  In  Memo- 
riam  or  in  Wood  Notes.  John  Burroughs  has 
shown  what  a  delightful  study  Nature  may 
be  to  him  who  plays  with  her  for  the  mere 
sake  of  the  play.  He  has  given  us  the  ex- 
treme of  what  may  be  called  wind-rustled 
and  dew-dashed  literature.  What  a  grand 
novelist  Henry  James  and  John  Burroughs 
would  make  if  they  could  be  welded  together ! 
Life  would  then  be  represented  sympathet- 


INFL  UENCES  IN  LITER  A  TURE.        1 1 5 

ically  from  centre  to  circumference — from  the 
heart  of  an  oak  to  the  outermost  garment  of 
a  "dude." 

Mr.  Hardy's  novel,  But  yet  a  Woman,  and 
Mr.  Crawford's  Mr.  Isaacs,  leaped  at  once  into 
popular  favor  on  account  of  the  freshness  that 
was  in  them.  In  both  stories  a  knowledge  of 
out-door  life  is  blended  with  a  keen  insight 
into  the  most  interesting  mysteries  of  the 
human  heart.  Mr.  Isaacs  was  not  only  a 
master  polo-player  and  a  crack  shot ;  he  was 
also  a  philosopher  and  a  lover  of  no  common 
sort.  In  But  yet  a  Woman  the  descriptive 
passages  and  the  epigrammatic  paragraphs 
serve  as  a  fixitive  for  the  story,  setting  it  per- 
manently, and  giving  it  an  air  of  its  own.  The 
physical  atmosphere  is  as  wholesome  and 
sweet  as  the  moral  spirit  is  sane  and  pure. 
One  would  suspect  that  the  story  had  been 
written  in  the  open  air,  or,  at  least,  in  the 
country,  with  the  library  windows  wide  open. 
Indeed,  sunshine  and  air  are  as  antiseptic  and 
deodorizing  in  literature  as  in  the  field  of  phys- 
ical operations.  Even  Baudelaire  occasion- 
ally, under  the  influence  of  a  sea-breeze,  wrote 
such  a  poem  as  Parfum  Exotique,  or  La  Cheve- 
lure.  He  had  a  charming  knowledge  of 
marine  effects,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  his 
verse 

"  Infinis  bercements  du  loisir  enbaume  " 

is  enough  of  itself  to  immortalize  him.  It  is 
a  whole  poem.  One  sees  the  warm,  creamy 
tropical  water,  feels  the  long,  lazy  swell,  the  in- 
finite idle  rocking,  the  balmy  leisure,  and 
takes  in,  as  by  a  breath,  the  illusive  charm  of 
the  ever-mysterious  sea.  Buchanan  Read's 


1 1 6          BY-WAYS  A ArD  BIRD-NO TES. 

Drifting  might  be  condensed  into  that   one 
line — 

"  Infinis  bercements  du  loisir  embaume." 

In  fact,  the  few  poems  worthy  the  name,  writ- 
ten by  Baudelaire,  were  made  out  of  the  sweet, 
warm  shreds  of  his  out-door  life,  while  on  a 
voyage  in  the  far  East.  Even  in  France,  this 
freshness  of  Nature  is  recognized  and  relished. 
In  JVuma  Roumestan  M.  Daudet  has,  as  one 
might  say,  wafted  the  odors  of  Provence 
through  the  streets  of  Paris.  The  critics  felt 
the  atmospheric  change,  and  went  to  the  win- 
dows to  see  the  mistral  flurrying  along  the 
boulevards.  So,  in  America,  when  Bret  Harte 
and  Joaquin  Miller  sent  their  stories  and  poems 
over  the  mountains  and  deserts  from  our  far 
Pacific  coast,  it  was  their  freshness — their 
woodsy,  dewy,  out-door  flavor  that  recom- 
mended them.  A  happy  blending  of  the 
bucolic  with  the  latest  fashionable  tendencies 
— a  welding  together  of  the  pastoral  and  the 
ultra-urban,  made  a  great  success  of  An  Earn- 
est Trifler.  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  in- 
stances. The  proofs  are  perfect  that  the  in- 
fluences of  out-door  life  upon  literature  are  of 
the  subtlest  and  most  interesting  nature. 
Whilst  every  one  must  admit  the  paramount 
importance  of  human  life  in  every  form  of  lit- 
erary composition,  still  the  side-light  of  out- 
door nature  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  his- 
torian, the  poet,  and  the  novelist,  and  he  who 
neglects  it  fails  in  one  of  the  prime  require- 
ments of  the  best  art.  As  well  might  the 
painter  draw  a  group  of  figures  without  color, 
atmosphere,  or  background,  and  expect  to 
win  the  highest  fame,  as  for  the  novelist  or  the 


I  NFL  UENCES  IN  LITER  A  TURE.         1 1 7 

poet  to  depend  wholly  upon  human  actions  and 
conversations  for  his  effects.  The  moral  of 
all  this  need  not  be  appended.  Out-door 
life  is  the  great  recreator  and  regenerator.  Na- 
ture is  steeped  in  the  elixir  which  has  power 
to  freshen  and  renew  our  highest  facilities.  If 
"  the  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man,"  still 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  sound  lungs,  healthy 
blood,  a  good  appetite,  and  a  clear  brain,  are 
indispensable  to  such  study,  and  are  to  be  had 
only  by  those  who  breathe  pure  air,  digest  their 
food,  and  read  the  human  heart  by  the  light 
of  the  sun. 


A  FORTNIGHT  IN  A  PALACE  OF 
REEDS. 

WHEN  you  reach  the  top  of  the  bold  hill 
known  as  Cedar  Loaf,  you  may  see  the  Coo- 
sawattee  River  winding  away,  in  a  direction 
diagonal  to  the  length  of  the  valley  below, 
sparkling  and  rippling  between  its  dense 
fringes  of  canebrake.  There  are  broad  rifts 
in  the  forests  of  pine,  hickory,  oak  and  tulip, 
through  which  shine  the  grassy  glades  or  min- 
iature prairies,  peculiar  to  the  North  Georgia 
region.  The  old  Indian  Ford,  from  which  the 
serpentine  trail  of  the  Cherokees  used  to 
wriggle  away  like  a  snake,  is  still  visible,  its 
steep  approaches  having  somewhat  the  ap- 
pearance of  abandoned  otter-slides.  Nowhere 
in  the  world,  I  believe,  can  such  beautiful  fo- 
liage be  found  as  that  wherewith  the  forests 
of  this  wild  region  bedecks  itself  in  April. 
The  young  hickory  trees  spread  out  marvellous 
leaves,  more  than  a  span  in  width,  and  the  yel- 
low tulip  exaggerates  both  foliage  and  flowers. 
The  dogwood  and  sour-gum,  the  red-oak,  the 
maple  and  the  chestnut,  the  cherry,  the  sasa- 
fras  and  the  lovely'  sweet-gum  all  flourish  in 
fullest  luxury  of  life  and  color.  Wild  flowers, 
too,  of  almost  endless  varieties,  leap  into  per- 
fect blossom  early  in  spring  along  every  hill 
slope  and  in  every  valley,  pocket,  and  ravine. 

Not  far  from  Indian  Ford  stood  the  Palace 
of  Reeds,  built  by  Nature's  own  hand,  on  a 
low  bluff  of  the  river's  east  bank.  We  found 


IN  A  PALACE  OF  RE^DS.  119 

it — Will  and  I — while  rambling  in  the  valley, 
and,  by  virtue  of  the  right  of  discovery,  quietly 
appropriated  it  for  our  indwelling  during  the 
fair  weather  of  the  delightful  Georgian  spring. 
Imagine  two  wild  plum  trees  in  full  sweet- 
scented  bloom  standing  twenty-five  feet  apart, 
with  a  thick-leaved  muscadine  vine  flung  over 
them  like  a  richly  wrought  mantle.  The  boles 
of  the  trees  are  gray  and  mossy,  fluted  like 
antique  pillars.  The  ground  is  flecked  with 
rugs  of  dark  Southern  moss  through  which  the 
violets  and  spring  beauties  have  found  their 
way.  The  keen  odor  of  sassafras  and  the 
delicate  perfume  of  tulip  honey  comes  along 
the  air.  You  stand  on  the  threshold  of  this 
natural  palace,  and  looking  through  the 
tender  gloom  of  its  arched  hall  you  see  the 
cool  river  flowing  and  singing  on.  There  are 
bees  in  the  air,  wild  bees  whose  home  is 
in  some  great  hollow  plane-tree  not  far  away. 
You  hear  the  dreamful  hum  of  tiny  wings. 
You  see  the  plum  flowers  shake  and  let  fall 
their  golden  pollen  dust,  and  the -reeds,  the 
tall  gold-and-green  reeds,  rise  all  around  the 
palace  forming  its  walls.  The  earth  is  warm, 
the  sky  is  pure  and  cloudless.  Deep  in  the 
brake  a  hermit-thrush  is  calling.  A  vireo  be- 
yond the  river  quavers  mournfully. 

The  Palace  of  Reeds  was  handsomely  fur- 
nished with  a  mossy  log  for  sofa,  two  camp- 
stools  and  a  low  canvas  table.  An  easel  stood 
for  most  of  the  day  in  the  clear  light  of  the 
west,  opening  just  above  the  babbling  water. 
It  is  worth  noting,  because  now  it  is  a  fra- 
grant memory,  that  the  drawing-board  was 
of  red  cedar.  The  box  of  moist  water-colors, 
the  bird-sketches,  the  portfolio  of  pencil  notes, 


1 20          BY- WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

the  half-dozen  well  worn  volumes  scattered 
about  give  a  strange  air  to  this  woodland 
bower.  No  farm  or  plantation  is  in  sight. 
If  you  can  hear  any  sound  of  busy  human  life, 
it  is  the  singing  of  some  merry  negroes  pro- 
pelling a  corn-boat  down  the  river.  Usually 
these  boats  passed  us  in  the  night.  They 
were  a  kind  of  long,  low  keel  craft  with  stern 
paddle  and  oars.  Midway  of  the  boat  were 
heaped  the  white  sacks  of  corn.  The  tall 
dusky  oarsmen  swayed  to  and  fro  singing 
meanwhile  some  outlandish  but  strangely  fas- 
cinating song. 

Here  by  the  flaring  light  of  burning  pine- 
knots  we  read  Keats  and  Theocritus,  Shelley 
and  Ovid  in  turn.  Our  concurrent  studies 
were  not  plainly  congruous,  rather  conflict- 
ing, one  might  think,  for  we  studied  Greek, 
practised  archery,  collected  birds-eggs,  made 
water-color  drawings  of  plants  and  birds, 
read  poetry,  boated,  swam,  practised  taxi- 
dermy, fenced  with  reed  foils,  fished  for  bass, 
and  cooked  admirable  dinners  !  A  little  way 
off  stood  our  cabin,  or  rather,  our  hut,  into 
which  a  sudden  shower  of  rain  now  and  then 
drove  us.  When  the  nights  were  clear  we 
hung  our  hammocks  in  the  palace,  and  slept 
suspended  in  the  perfumed  breeze.  Often  I 
awoke  in  the  small  hours  and  heard  the  rac- 
coons growling  and  chattering  in  the  brake. 
At  such  times  the  swash  of  the  river  had  a 
strangely  soothing  effect,  a  lullaby  of  fairy 
land. 

Will  had  a  nocturnal  habit.  He  would  slip 
forth,  when  the  moon  shone,  long  after  I  had 
gone  to  sleep,  and  the  twang  of  his  bowstring 
would  startle  me  from  quiet  dreams  as  he  let 


IN  A  PALACE  OF  REEDS.  121 

go  a  shaft  at  an  owl  or  a  night  heron.  Read- 
ing over  some  of  the  notes  I  made  at  the  time 
recalls  the  charmingly  unique  effect  of  certain 
sounds  heard  at  waking  moments  in  those  out- 
door resting-hours : 

The  leaping  of  bass,  for  instance,  plash, 
plash,  at  unequal  intervals  of  time  and  distance, 
breaking  through  the  supreme  quiet  of  mid- 
night, comes  to  one's  ears  with  a  liquid,  bub- 
bling accompaniment,  not  at  all  like  anything 
else  in  the  world.  The  mocking  bird  (Mimus 
polyglottus)  often  starts  from  sleep  in  the  scented 
foliage  of  the  sweet-gum  to  sing  a  tender  med- 
ley to  the  rising  moon.  At  such  time  his 
voice  reflects  all  the  richness  and  shadowy 
dreamfulness  of  night.  It  blends  into  one's 
sense  of  rest  and  becomes  an  element  of  en- 
joyment after  one  has  fallen  again  into 
slumber. 

Frogs  are  night's  buffoons.  "  Croak,  croak, 
croak,"  you  hear  one  muttering,  and  with  your 
eyes  yet  unopened  and  the  silence  and  still- 
ness of  sleep  scarcely  gone  from  you,  you 
wonder  where  he  is  sitting.  On  what  green 
tussock,  with  his  big  eyes  jetting  out  and  his 
angular  legs  akimbo,  does  he  squat  ?  Sud- 
denly "  Chug  !  "  You  know  how  he  leaped 
up,  spread  out  his  limbs,  turned  down  his  head 
and  struck  into  the  water  like  a  shot.  You 
chuckle  grimly  to  yourself,  turn  over  in  your 
hammock,  and  all  is  forgotten. 

Then  the  screech-owl  begins  to  whine  in 
its  tremulous,  querulous  falsetto,  snapping  its 
beak  occasionally  as  if  to  remind  the  mice  and 
small  birds  of  its  murderous  desires.  The 
big  horned-owl  laughs  and  hoots  far  away  in 
gloomy  glens.  The  leaves  rustle,  the  river 


122          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

pours  on,  and  the  wind  sinks  and  swells  like 
the  breath  of  a  mighty  sleeper. 

Perfumes,  too,  affect  one  strangely,  on  wak- 
ing, in  the  depth  of  night.  There  is  a  certain 
decayed  wood  in  the  Southern  forests  which  at 
times  gives  forth  a  delicate,  far-reaching  aroma. 
This,  together  with  the  occasional  wafts  of 
sweet-gum  odor  and  the  peculiarly  sharp  smell 
of  pine  resin,  steals  through  the  woodland 
ways  and  touches  the  sleeper's  senses  until 
he  slowly  awakes.  Drowsily  he  lies,  with  his 
eyes  lightly  closed,  noting  the  tender  shades 
of  sweetness  as  they  come  and  go.  But  the 
falling  of  a  slight  shower  of  rain,  one  of  those 
short,  light,  even  down-comings  of  large  drops, 
which  is  not  strong  enough  to  break  through 
the  leaf-canopy  overheard,  moves  the  out-door 
slumberer  to  most  exquisite  enjoyment.  He 
opens  his  eyes  and  all  his  senses  at  once. 
The  air  has  sweet  moisture  in  it,  the  darkness 
is  deep.  Above,  around,  far  and  near,  a  tu- 
mult is  in  the  leaves.  The  shower  is  scarcely 
more  than  momentary  in  its  duration,  but  it 
is  infinitely  suggestive.  There  are  millions  of 
voices  calling  from  far  and  near.  Vast  organ 
swells,  tender  aeolian  strains,  the  thrumming 
of  harp-strings  and  the  exquisite  quaverings  of 
the  violin.  Multitudes  clapping  hands  and 
crying  from  afar  in  applause.  Then  as  the 
cloud  passes  on,  the  throbbing  sounds  trail 
after  it,  and  at  length  it  all  dies  out  beyond 
the  hills. 

So  our  nights  were  "  filled  with  music  "  in 
the  Palace  of  Reeds. 

Our  days  were  the  scenes  of  greater  because 
more  active  pleasures.  We  had  a  pirogue  dug 
out  of  a  tulip  log  which  we  propelled  on  the 


IN  A  PALACE  OF  REEDS.  123 

river  in  our  shooting,  sketching  and  fishing 
excursions.  We  endeavored  to  make  pencil 
studies  of  all  the  wild-birds  in  their  natural  at- 
titudes, drawing  them  in  water-colors  after- 
wards from  specimens  held  captive.  These 
models  we  took  in  springes,  traps,  and  snares 
of  various  sorts,  the  horse-hair  slip-noose  be- 
ing the  best  for  many  birds.  When  the  mul- 
berries are  ripening  you  may  capture  wood- 
peckers readily  by  erecting  a  smooth,  slender 
pole  projecting  somewhat  above  the  tree-top 
and  having  horse-hair  slip-nooses,  thickly  set 
along  its  sides,  for  entangling  their  feet.  The 
same  capillary  arrangement  on  the  branches 
of  trees  especially  haunted  by  any  other  bird 
will  prove  a  pretty  certain  means  of  ensnar- 
ing it.  We  took  great  pains  not  to  hurt  our 
captive  models  and  freed  them  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. 

Sketching  a  wild  bird  in  the  freedom  of  the 
woods  and  brakes  is  the  utmost  shorthand 
known  to  the  artist.  It  must  be  done  with 
all  the  dash  and  hurry  of  phonographic  report- 
ing. Five  seconds  cover  a  very  long  stop  in  a 
bird's  movements,  and  some  of  them  are  never 
'  still  for  even  that  short  period  of  time.  I  have 
followed  one  bird,  a  species  of  warbler  (Sylvia 
vermivora^)  for  a  full  hour  before  I  could  get  a 
passable  outline  sketch.  In  and  out  among 
the  leaves,  over  and  under  and  round  and 
round,  it  went  flitting,  peering,  prying,  a  very 
embodiment  of  restlessness.  Such  a  chase  has 
in  it  a  smack  of  excitement,  and  after  it  is  all 
over  a  leisurely  survey  of  your  sketch-book,  leaf 
by  leaf,  will  be  both  amusing  and  instructive. 
There  is  something  of  inspiration  often  found 
lurking  in  lines  dashed  down  upon  the  paper 


1 24          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

in  this  hurried,  almost  frantic  way.  You  have 
also  sometimes  made  comic  pictures  when  you 
least  intended  such  things  !  Here  is  a  bird's 
bill  and  a  quick  firm  curve  for  the  back  of  its 
head  ;  the  rest  of  the  sketch  flew  away  with  the 
original.  On  the  next  page  stands  a  fly-catcher, 
on  one  leg,  minus  a  wing  and  having  only  the 
hint  of  a  tail ;  but  you  have  preserved  the 
characteristic  attitude,  and  the  sketch  is  valua- 
ble. You  can  work  it  up  at  your  leisure. 
Here  is  a  pine-woodpecker,  a  pretty  fair  out- 
line, but  there  is  no  sign  of  an  eye  in  the  bird's 
head  and  its  feet  grasp  thin  air.  All  these 
notes,  however  hurried  and  uncertain,  are 
reminders  of  what  your  eyes  have  seen,  bring- 
ing up  at  once  vivid  pictures  of  the  gay  wild 
things  which  have  flitted  before  you. 

Sometimes  a  bird  will  be  exceedingly  ac- 
commodating. I  recall  now  how  one  day  I 
crept,  under  cover  of  a  tuft  of  wild  sedge  grass, 
to  within  thirty  feet  of  a  log-cock  (Hylotamus 
pileatus],  and  worked  out  a  most  satisfactory 
study,  while  it  was  quietly  eating  winged  ants, 
as  they  poured  from  a  hole  it  had  pecked  in  a 
rotten  stump. 

,  The  yellow-billed  cuckoo  is  a  very  difficult 
bird  to  sketch,  so  shy  and  sly  and  so  restless. 
You  will  hear  his  queer,  throbbing  note  in 
some  lone  place,  and  you  will  slip  along 
hoping  to  see  him.  When  you  have  nearly 
reached  the  spot,  lo,  he  has  eluded  you,  and 
his  mournful  voice  caws  out  from  deeper 
shades  further  off  among  the  tangled  trees. 
The  wood-thrush  and  hermit-thrush  are  equally 
evasive.  By  the  way,  Wilson  claims  that 
the  hermit-thrush  is  mute.  I  am  sure  this 
is  an  error.  One  day  while  I  lay  in  a  cane- 


IN  A  PALACE  OF  REEDS.  125 

brake  watching  a  green-heron's  nest,  a 
low  sweet  "  turlilee"  much  like  the  wood- 
thrush's  warble  or  thrill,  called  my  eyes  to  a 
bird  not  ten  feet  away  from  me.  I  was  well 
hidden  and  motionless,  so  that  I  was  not  dis- 
covered until  after  I  had  thoroughly  identified 
the  hermit.  It  repeated  the  low,  musical  trill 
several  times,  and  when  at  -length  I  frightened 
it  by  some  movement,  it  flew  away  uttering  a 
keen  squeak  or  chirp. 

Having  digressed  thus  far  it  is  pardonable 
to  go  a  step  further  and  declare  that  the  blue- 
jay  sings.  I  have  heard  it  sing  a  low,  tender 
wheedling  song  which  seems  never  to  have  at- 
tracted the  notice  of  naturalists.  A  wood- 
duck  had  her  nest  in  the  hollow  of  a  plane- 
tree  just  across  the  little  river  from  the  palace. 
I  watched  her  go  out  and  in.  She  made  her 
wings  silent,  so  as  not  to  attract  notice,  going 
through  the  air  with  as  little  noise  as  an  owl. 
Her  mate,  a  beautifully  painted  fellow,  lin- 
gered about  the  brakes  in  the  vicinity,  occa- 
sionally uttering  a  sly  quack.  How  the  young 
when  hatched  were  conveyed  safely  to  the 
ground  we  failed  to  discover.  One  morning 
they  were  in  the  river  swimming  beside  their 
mother  as  if  they  had  always  been  there,  dod- 
dling  their  heads  and  arching  their  necks  just 
like  old  ducks. 

There  was  an  island  a  mile  up  the  river 
whither  we  often  went,  to  fish  off  shore  for 
bass,  and  to  sketch  kildee-plover  and  sand- 
pipers. On  one  end  of  the  island  grew  a 
patch  of  cane  and  rush-grass  into  which  we 
tracked  a  fawn  ;  but  the  shy  creature  hid  so 
successfully  that  we  could  not  find  it.  A  wild 
turkey  had  its  nest  in  the  edge  of  this  jungle 


126          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

early  in  the  spring.  It  was  also  the  nesting- 
place  of  a  pair  of  cardinal-grosbeaks,  whose 
well-built  home  I  discovered  fitted  neatly  be- 
tween three  strong  reeds.  Soon  in  the  morn- 
ing the  male  would  alight  on  the  highest  point 
above  the  nest  and  whistle  bravely,  his  plum 
age  shining  like  dull  red  fire 

There  is  no  craft  like  a  dug-out,  that  genu 
ine  Indian  pirogue,  for  perfect  gentleness  and 
sweetness  of  motion.  You  sit  on  a  seat  hewn 
in  the  stern  and  ply  a  short,  rather  broad 
paddle.  The  long,  slender  boat  is  all  before 
you,  the  prow  well  up,  like  a  pug  nose.  The 
round,  smooth  bottom  slips  along  almost  on  top 
of  the  water,  as  if  running  over  ice.  In  such  a 
pirogue  we  would  paddle  around  the  island 
and  troll  far  bass,  often  catching  wonderfully 
game  fellows  of  over  four  pounds  in  weight. 
This  silent  gliding  of  the  dug-out  makes  \\.par 
excellence  the  angler's  craft.  There  is  no  rat- 
tling of  rowlock  and  thole-pin,  no  •  oar-dip. 
Your  paddle  goes  in  silently,  it  comes  out  with 
not  even  the  slightest  ripple-break.  The 
bass  and  bream  are  utterly  unaware  of  your 
movements. 

Speaking  of  bream,  as  the  Southerners  call 
the  blue-perch,  it  is  a  royal  fish.  You  find 
it  in  the  eddies  and  swirls  of  those  Georgian 
brooks  and  rivers,  a  voracious  feeder,  taking 
the  worm  with  all  the  vigor  of  a  trout.  You 
use  a  rather  heavy  reed  for  a  rod,  rigged  with 
a  small  reel.  The  larvae  of  wasps  and  angle- 
worms are  the  most  killing  baits.  A  bream 
weighing  ten  ounces  will  give  you  a  lively  run, 
testing  your  skill  equal  to  a  speckled  trout  of  a 
like  size.  It  comes  out  of  the  water  shining 
with  royal  purple  and  yellowish  waves  of  color. 


IN  A  PALACE  OF  REEDS.  127 

In  shape  it  is  shorter  and  broader,  but  resem- 
bles somewhat  the  rock-bass. 

We  sketched  our  fish  while  alive,  and  I  find, 
among  many  other  curious  reminders  of  the 
palace,  a  pencil  drawing  of  the  great  Southern 
gar,  a  fish  with  a  bill  much  like  a  snipe's. 
This  specimen  we  did  not  catch,  but  bought  it 
of  an  old  negro,  who,  every  Saturday,  rain  or 
shine,  visited  our  camp,  coming  from  a  planta- 
tion quarter  some  miles  up  the  river.  He  was 
a  piper,  a  sort  of  African  Pan,  who  blew  lively 
pieces  of  barbaric  tunes  out  of  reed  joints 
arranged  in  triangular  form.  He  came  to  sell 
us  eggs  of  the  guinea  fowl,  which  I  suspect  he 
stole,  albeit  they  made  very  fine  omelets.  He 
taught  us  a  new  and  ingenious  method  of 
snaring  hares  and  birds.  Our  water-color 
sketches  were  wonderful  to  his  eyes,  and  he 
babbled  about  them  in  a  supremely  droll  way. 

To  dwellers  in  the  Northern  and  Middle 
States,  it  may  seem  strange,  this  out-door  life, 
but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  hills  and 
valleys  of  Cherokee  Georgia,  are  dry  and 
warm  from  April  to  September,  dews  are  light, 
the  air  pure,  and,  for  weeks  together,  the  sky  is 
cloudless  day  and  night.  I  recall  a  perfect 
February,  it  must  have  been  in  1859.  Will 
and  I,  then  mere  boys,  staid  out  during  the  en- 
tire month  and  not  a  drop  of  rain  fell  Every 
day  was  warm  and  clear,  the  nights  were  cool 
and  pleasant.  No  clouds,  scarcely  any  wind 
— a  month  of  rare  dreamy  weather,  not  unlike 
northern  Indian  summer. 

Many  a  night  in  July  and  August  I  have  slept 
in  the  open  air  under  a  tree,  preferring  it  to  a 
cot  or  bed  indoors.  A  hammock  and  a  heavy 
blanket,  for  the  nights  are  chilly  even  in  mid- 


I28          BY-WAYS  A ND  BIRD-NO TES. 

summer,  with  mere  shelter  from  dew  if  any  fall, 
are  all  one  needs  for  healthful  rest. 

Our  bower  among  the  reeds  caught  that 
gentle  current  of  air  which  nearly  always  flows 
with  the  way  of  a  river,  and  we  were  rarely  dis- 
turbed by  gnats  or  mosquitoes.  There  were 
no  dangerous  wild  beasts,  very  few  poisonous 
snakes,  and,  of  course,  nothing  else  to  make 
us  fearful. 

But  we  were  not  idle  dreamers.  We  had  in 
view  a  definite  object,  toward  which  all  our 
studies  and  labors  pointed.  Alas,  the  cataclys- 
mal  years  which  soon  came  swept  all  away ! 
The  best  that  can  be  gathered  from  fragment- 
ary remnants  and  vivid  recollections  is  a  sort 
of  dreamy  pleasure  in  somewhat  living  over 
again  those  days  and  nights  of  tranquil  green- 
wood life.  A  little  of  science  and  a  great  deal 
of  nature  we  found  out.  We  learned  the  ways 
of  the  fish,  the  birds,  the  bees,  the  winds,  the 
clouds,  the  flowers.  We  translated  the  mean- 
ing of  stream-songs  and  leaf-murmurs.  In  the 
Palace  of  Reeds  we  knew  utter  freedom  based 
on  older  law  than  magna  charta  or  any  declara- 
tion of  rights.  When  one  is  a  supple  boy  in  the 
wildwood,  healthy,  happy,  strong,  with  a  long 
bow  in  his  hands  and  old  romance  all  through 
him,  he  is  free  as  the  winds  and  birds.  Add  to 
this  a  strong  purpose,  an  aim  far  ahead,  and 
what  would  you  have  more  ? 

Our  indoor  days,  if  those  spent  in  the  Palace 
may  be  so  called,  would  have  appeared,  to  a 
world-wise  onlooker,  somewhat  tame  ;  but  to 
a  poet  they  would  have  revealed  the  labors  of 
sincere,  earnest  souls,  feeling  their  way  through 
youth's  morning-mist  to  the  clear  light. 

I  remember  one  hot  May  day,  too  sultry  for 


IN  A  PALACE  OF  REEDS.  129 

any  great  physical  exertion,  we  spent  in  the 
most  delightful  way.  Will  was  busy  with  The- 
ocritus, and  kept  up  a  running  comment  on  the 
oral  translation  to  which  he  .was  treating  me, 
while  I,  with  leisurely  care,  was  making  a  draw- 
ing in  water-colors  of  a  fine  butcher-bird  I  had 
captured  the  day  before.  The  wind  came  in 
desultory  throbs  through  our  mossy  hall,  fetch- 
ing up  from  the  river  a  touch  of  dampness  and 
the  smell  of  water  weeds.  All  the  bird-voices 
were  hushed,  or,  if  heard  at  all,  they  wasted 
themselves  in  scattering  squeaks  and  lazy 
dreamful  flutings.  Shut  away  from  the  sun, 
we  were  made  aware  of  his  extreme  heat  indi- 
rectly by  the  softened  reflection  from  the  water 
and  by  that  dusky  dryness  always  -observable 
on  the  reed  leaves  and  the  blades  of  aquatic 
grass  when  a  spring  day  burns  like  midsummer. 
We  could  hear  the  chattering  cry  of  the  king- 
fisher and  an  occasional  plash,  as  the  industri- 
ous bird  plunged  into  the  river  after  his  prey. 
Diagonally  across  the  stream,  near  the  other 
bank,  a  small  tree  growing  at  the  water's  edge, 
had  caught  a  scraggily  drift  of  logs  and  boughs, 
round  which  a  brown  scum,  with  huge  pyra- 
mids of  white  foam,  was  clinging.  Some  green 
herons  stood  on  projecting  sticks,  stretching 
their  puffy  necks,  or  silently  sulking,  with 
their  sharp  beaks  elevated  and  their  throats 
knotted  into  balls  upon  their  breasts.  Among 
some  stones  in  a  shallow  place,  a  bright  spot- 
ted water-snake  lay  in  the  ripple,  holding  up 
his  angular  head  and  darting  his  malign  tongue 
in  sheer  wantonness  of  spirit. 

Those   idyls,  as  Will  read  them,  fell  from 
his  lips  to  immediately  blend  with  the  warm 
lull,  the  glowing  dream  of  Nature.    Those  flow- 
9 


1 30          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

ers  of  song  joined  well  witn  the  flower-de-luce 
and  the  wild  geranium.  Their  racy  fragrance 
was  of  kin  to  the  leaf-smell  and  resin  odor. 
Will's  voice  seemed,  in  some  mysterious  way, 
to  become  the  expression  of  the  mood  of  Na- 
ture. A  dream  came  upon  me.  I  leaned 
against  the  wall  of  reeds  and  felt  the  coolness 
of  their  sappy  stalks  steal  all  through  my  frame. 
My  sketch  faded  from  my  sight  and  I  but 
vaguely  noted  the  restless  movements  of  my 
captive  shrike. 

There  are  times  when  hearing  a  true  lyric 
read  aloud  is  the  quintessence  of  all  rapture- 
ful  music.  It  is  the  expression  of  everything 
ariose  and  thrillingly  sweet  which  has  ever 
been  played  or  written  or  sung,  from  Terpan- 
der  to  Remenyi,  from  Anacreon  to  Aldrich. 
I  said  something  of  this  sort  to  Will  in  reply  to 
a  kindred  suggestion  from  him  touching  the 
idyls.  He  arose  and  strung  his  bow,  then, 
holding  his  ear  close  to  the  cord,  he  twanged 
it  softly  and  replied  :  "  You  hear  that  low  note. 
Well,  how  many  ages  ago  did  man  first  hear 
it?  The  piano,  the  violin,  the  lyre,  every 
stringed  instrument  is  a  growth  from  the  long- 
bow. So  some  poet  away  off  in  yesterdays  let 
fall  the  first  perfect  seed  of  song,  and  its  kind 
will  go  on  increasing  in  vigor  and  multiplying 
in  number  forever." 

Somewhere,  in  the  depths  of  the  brake,  a 
cat-bird  began  to  trill  and  warble,  and  a  big 
bass  leaped  above  the  water  of  the  *iver,  beside 
a  half  submerged  log.  The  sun  crept  on  and 
rolled  down  the  west.  As  the  shadows  length- 
ened the  heat  withdrew,  giving  place  to  re- 
freshing coolness.  We  watched  the  little 
flurries  of  wind  rimple  the  river's  face.  Great 


IN  A  PALACE  OF  REEDS.  131 

turtles  came  up  out  of  the  water  and  crawled 
along  on  a  sandy  place.  Two  doves  circled  in 
the  air,  sailing  like  sparrow-hawks,  getting 
lower  and  lower,  until  they  lit  upon  a  stone 
in  the  shallows  below  us  and  drank  thirstily. 
We  heard  the  woodpeckers  pounding  in  the 
woods  behind  the  hill,  the  nuthatches  crying 
"  ank,  ank,"  in  the  great  tulip  tree  hard  by, 
and  high  overhead,  in  the  yellow  glory  of  sun- 
light, a  hen-hawk  screaming.  Odors  arose 
and  passed  down  the  waxing  wind.  The  cane 
leaves  tipped  each  other  lightly,  and  a  whisper- 
ing of  many  voices  arose  from  the  rushes  and 
flags.  So  twilight  thickened  into  night.  The 
stars  crept  out  and  the  great  horned  owl  and 
the  night-hawk  crept  out,  too,  with  some  solemn 
bats  and  giant  moths,  that  whirled  and  darted 
above  the  reeds. 

Such  a  fortnight  in  the  woods  as  I  have  been 
lightly  sketching,  will  bring  to  him  who  rightly 
uses  it  a  rich  return  for  whatever  sacrifice  it 
compels.  It  is  to  Nature  one  must  go  for 
ideas.  Her  lessons  are  rich  with  original 
germs  for  the  philosopher,  the  poet,  the  artist 
or  the  romancer  to  vitalize  his  works  withal. 
No  genuine  bit  of  originality  can  be  found,  in 
poem,  picture  or  tale,  which  has  not  been 
drawn  from  the  secret  depositories  of  Nature. 
The  woods  and  streams,  the  hills  and  winds 
are  but  the  indices  to  volumes,  one  leaf  of 
which  would  exhaust  the  literature  of  ages. 
All  eloquence,  poetry,  and  painting  can  be 
better  understood  when  one  is  as  free  as  the 
winds  and  as  happy  as  a  brook.  To  know 
what  is  supreme  enjoyment,  go  into  the  woods 
and,  lying  beside  a  rivulet  in  fair  June  weather, 
read  Theocritus  till  the  bubbling  stream  and 


132          BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

the  rhythmic  idyls  flow  together  in  your  mind 
a  perfect  harmony  of  naturalness.  Or,  if  you 
are  an  artist,  set  up  your  easel  by  the  brook, 
or,  with  sketch-book  in  hand,  follow  the  vireo 
and  wood-thrush  from  spot  to  spot  until  you 
have  noted  something  new,  if  it  be  but  a  new 
attitude  of  the  shy,  shadowy  things.  Lie  on 
the  cool  earth  and  watch  the  wind  wave  the 
trees  and  see  the  sunlight  flit  and  flash  through 
their  high  tops  like  rare  thoughts  through  a 
poet's  mind.  Leap  up  and  shout  and  sing. 
Take  off  your  hat  and  toss  your  hair  in  the 
breeze.  Plunge  into  the  river  and  dive  and 
swim.  Go  sleep  in  a  hammock  in  the  Palace 
of  Reeds ! 


CUCKOO    NOTES. 

TAKEN  at  the  right  season,  the  mountainous 
region  of  northern  Georgia  will  furnish  a  prac- 
tically unvvorked  field  to  the  naturalist  and 
pedestrian  tourist,  whilst  to  the  artist  it  must 
become,  sooner  or  later,  a  source  of  rich  treas- 
ure. No  other  part  of  our  country  offers  so 
pleasing  a  variety  of  landscape  features,  from 
the  quiet  repose  of  level  river-fed  valleys  to 
the  grandeur  of  rocky  peaks  thrown  up  against 
the  bluest  sky  in  the  world. 

This  region  is  the  Spring  haunt  of  a  large 
number  of  our  American  birds,  as  it  affords 
the  best  possible  nesting-  and  feeding-places 
for  them,  especially  those  whose  habits  are  in- 
sectivorous and  arboreal ;  besides,  it  is  in  the 
direct  line  of  migration  from  Florida  and  other 
southern  winter  resorts  to  the  great  northern 
summer  habitat  of  those  happy  feathered  aris- 
tocrats who  can  afford  to  oscillate  with  the  sun. 
The  peculiarities  of  soil,  the  suddenness  with 
which  Spring  comes  on,  and  the  protection  to 
tender  germs  afforded  by  the  curiously  moun- 
tain-locked "  pockets  "  and  valleys,  cause  all 
sorts  of  forest  and  field  vegetation  to  leap 
into  vivid,  lusty  life  early  in  April. 

There  is  no  word  in  our  language  so  express- 
ive of  the  sudden  appearance  of  leaf  and 
flower  all  over  those  brown  hills  and  slate- 
gray  valleys,  as  gush.  The  rains  practically 
end  with  March,  and  the  sun  ushers  in  the  suc- 
ceeding month  with  a  fervor  that  would  be  un- 


1 34          BY- WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

comfortable  but  for  the  ever-fresh  breezes ;  the 
light  vegetable  mould  of  the  thin  forests  warms 
at  once,  and  within  a  few  days  everything  is 
green  with  leaves  and  gay  with  flowers.  Even 
the  oak-trees  have  scarcely  time  to  show  their 
tassels  before  their  leaves  have  broadened  to 
dimensions  wholly  beyond  comparison  with 
those  of  oak  foliage  in  any  lower  or  higher  lati- 
tude. An  almost  dazzling  vividness  flashes,  so 
to  speak,  from  valley  to  hill-top,  indicative  of 
an  exceptional  local  climatic  impulse.  Every- 
thing grows  with  a  riant  haste,  as  if  aware 
that  this  ecstatic  Spring  vigor  would  soon  ex- 
haust itself  (as  it  nearly  always  does)  and 
leave  the  region  to  a  long,  dreamy  Summer 
drouth. 

The  migratory  birds  drop  into  this  favored 
district,  just  in  time  to  get  the  full  benefit  of 
its  luxuriance,  and  are  met  by  a  clamorous  and 
querulous  army  of  residents,  whose  domain  is 
too  large  to  be  successfully  defended  against 
invaders.  The  wild  orchards  of  plum  and 
haw  that  border  the  glades,  the  thickets  of 
young  pines,  the  hickory  groves  and  the  dusky 
forests  of  post-oak  and  black  gum  are  at  once 
flooded  with  song.  The  semi-marsh  lands 
where  the  liquidamber  *  flourishes,  and  the 
river  "  bottoms  "  where  the  tulip-tree  and  the 
ash  and  elm  grow  to  giant  size,  are  the  haunts 
of  the  pileated  woodpecker,  the  hermit-thrush, 

*  The  sweet  gum  (Liquidamber  styraciflua)  is  a 
beautiful  tree  growing  to  perfection  in  the  Southern 
States,  along  the  banks  of  small  streams  in  wet  land. 
The  gum  or  resinous  balsam  obtained  by  scarifying  the 
bole  is  of  a  clear  amber  color,  is  pleasing  to  the  taste, 
and  gives  forth  a  peculiarly  agreeable  odor.  The  tree 
bears  a  flat  oval  berry  of  a  dark  blue  color  much  sought 
after  by  the  golden-winged  woodpecker, 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  135 

and  many  another  of  the  shyest  and  rarest  of 
our  birds. 

Nearly  all  the  rivers  and  rivulets  of  North 
Georgia  are  bordered  with  canebrakes  and 
overhanging  trees,  darkly  cumbered  and  bowed 
with  the  wildest  masses  of  muscadine  vines. 
The  canoe-voyager  passing  down  the  Oostanau- 
la,  the  Connasauga,  the  Coosawattee  or  the 
Salliquoy — streams  as  free  and  unconventional 
as  the  savages  who  gave  them  their  musical 
names — will  have  exceptional  opportunities 
for  studying  nature  at  first  hand. 

It  was  down  these  rivers  that  the  rich  plant- 
ers, whose  isolated  plantations  were  scattered  at 
wide  intervals  along  the  "  bottoms,"  used  to 
despatch  their  corn  and  wheat,  their  oats  and 
cotton,  in  keel-boats  manned  by  the  happiest 
slaves  who  ever  sighed  for  freedom.  Many  a 
moon-lit  night  I  have  lain  on  my  bed  of  cedar 
boughs  on  a  high,  breezy  bluff  of  the  Coosa- 
wattee and  heard  those  merry-hearted  boatmen 
go  by  with  the  current,  playing  the  banjo  and 
fluting  on  the  genuine  Pan-pipe  of  graded  reed- 
joints.*  Recalling  the  music,  at  this  distance, 
it  seems  to  me  the  most  barbaric  and  withal 
the  most  fascinating  imaginable.  Usually,  no 
matter  how  bright  the  night,  they  had  a  fire  of 
pine-knots  flaring  at  the  boat's  prow,  near 
which,  on  the  rude  floor  of  the  forecastle,  they 

*  This  pipe  is,  in  fact,  identical  with  the  Syrinx  or 
Pan-pipe  of  the  ancients.  I  have  seen  and  examined 
many  of  them,  formed  of  from  five  to  seven  reed-joints, 
of  graduated  sizes,  bound  together  in  a  row.  The 
music  is  made  by  blowing  the  breath  into  the  open  ends 
of  the  reeds.  There  were  some  reed-blowers  among 
the  slaves  of  North  Georgia  who  executed  certain  char- 
acteristic negro  melodies  with  surprising  effect. 


136          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

danced  their  vigorous  hoe-downs,  jigs  and 
jubah-shuffles. 

The  hill  country  is,  for  the  most  part,  very 
thinly  settled,  and  many  plantations  once  fer- 
tile and  prosperous  now  lie  waste,  all  over- 
grown with  dew-berry  vines  and  persimmon 
thickets.  Everywhere,  however,  the  birds  find 
rich  picking  in  the  season  of  young  leaves  and 
larvae,  and  all  those  perfumed  and  flowery 
groves  are  charming  nesting-places. 

Rummaging  among  my  ornithological  notes, 
I  find  enough  material  touching  the  habits  and 
haunts  of  our  American  cuckoos  to  make  a  lib- 
eral volume.  Most  of  the  memoranda  refer 
to  North  Georgia,  and,  in  fact,  the  yellow-billed 
cuckoo  (Coccygus  americanus)  especially,  is 
more  numerous  there  than  anywhere  else  that 
I  know  of.  The  habits  of  this  bird  as  well  as 
those  of  the  three  or  four  other  species  found 
in  North  America,  are  extremely  interesting, 
disconnected  from  any  mere  scientific  view, 
and  the  places  these  birds  inhabit,  and  the 
season  during  which  they  may  be  studied, 
make  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  touching  them 
a  most  delightful  affair  indeed. 

The  old  nursery  rhyme  : 

"  One  flew  east,  one  flew  west, 
One  flew  to  the  Cuckoo's  nest," 

should  have  read : 

"  One  flew  south  to  the  cuckoo's  nest," 

in  order  to  conform  to  American  facts ;  for  it 
is  below  the  Cumberland  range  of  mountains 
that  one  may  find  the  paradise  of  cuckoos. 
Of  course  even  the  yellow-bill  comes  far  North 
and  nests  in  our  apple  orchards,  forewarning 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  137 

us  of  rain,  as  many  good  people  think,  by  ut- 
tering its  notably  strange  cry,  once  heard 
never  forgotten ;  but  yet  it  is  on  the  northern 
margin  of  the  sub-tropic,  among  the  dry,  warm 
hills  of  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  the  Carolinas, 
that  Coccygus  most  loves  to  dwell. 

A  cuckoo's  nest  is  a  very  simple  affair — at 
first  glance,  a  mere  amorphous  jumble  of 
twigs,  catkins  and  leaf-ribs,  apparently  tossed 
at  hap-hazard  on  a  low  bough  ;  but  it  will  bear 
close  study,  for  its  architecture  is  characteris- 
tic of  the  bird's  strange  genius.  How  does 
such  a  loose  pile  of  sticks  maintain  its  place 
during  a  heavy  wind?  Careful  examination 
discloses  a  system  of  deftest  weaving  instead 
of  a  careless  or  chance  arrangement.  The 
work  of  a  genius  may  appear  rough  and  dis- 
jointed when  in  fact  the  subtlest  art  has  made 
it  look  so  for  the  deepest  purpose.  We  may 
never  determine  how  near  is  the  relation  be- 
tween the  rarest  human  intelligence  and  the 
instinct  of  animals,  but  I  have  not  yet  seen 
the  man  who  could  build  a  cuckoo's  nest ! 

From  the  Ohio  valley  down  into  Florida  I 
have  tracked  the  cuckoo  through  all  his  sea- 
sons and  haunts ;  but,  as  I  have  already  said, 
it  was  in  the  hill-country  of  North  Georgia  that 
I  made  the  most  of  my  notes.  Thither,  there- 
fore, let  us  go  in  the  first  days  of  April  and  be 
on  the  ground  when  the  strange,  sly,  shadow- 
like  bird  comes  up  from  the  farther  South. 
He  usually  comes,  with  the  wind  in  his  favor, 
drifting  down  into  the  fragrant  groves  on  that 
half-enervating,  half-inspiring  dream-breath 
which  the  Spring  puffs  over  the  hills  from  the 
gulf.  The  first  notice  given  of  his  advent  is 
that  pounding  note,  dolefully  sounded  in  the 


138          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

dusky  depths  of  the  woods,  hearing  which  the 
old  plantation  negroes  used  to  sing  their 
watermelon  rhymes : 

"  Plant  yo'  milions  w'en  de  rain-crow  holler, 
Ef  yo'  doan  dey  wont  be  wo'f  er  quar'  dollar ! 

Ki  fo'  de  rain, 

Ki  fo'  de  crow, 
Ye  orter  see  how  de  wa'r  milion  grow ! " 

It  is  not  so  remarkable,  after  all,  that  the 
cuckoo  is  called  Rain-crow  throughout  the  en- 
tire area  of  its  habitat,  for  he  seems  always 
able  to  conjure  up  a  shower  within  a  day  or 
two  of  his  first  appearance  in  the  spring.  I 
suspect  that  he  holds  his  solemn  voice  until 
the  rain  is  at  hand,  so  as  to  make  a  fine  artis- 
tic unity  out  of  it  and  the  depressing  gloom  of 
a  rising  storm-cloud. 

The  haw-groves  that  usually  fringe  the  mar- 
gin of  the  mountain  glades  are  the  Yellow- 
bill's  favorite  resorts  when  it  first  reaches  the 
hill-country  from  the  south.  Here  it  meets 
the  blue-jay,  the  brown-thrush  and  the  cardi- 
nal-grosbeak, permanent  residents  and  im- 
placable claimants  of  all  the  fruits  and  insects 
of  these  favored  spots. 

A  glade  is  a  peculiarly  Southern  woodland 
feature,  not  found  in  perfection  north  of  Ten- 
nessee, a  miniature  prairie,  surrounded  by 
scrubby  trees  and  groves  or  thickets  of  plum 
and  haw-bushes,  and  covered,  as  a  rule,  with 
wild  wire-grass  and  tufts  of  sedge.  Every  one 
who  has  spent  much  time  in  the  wildwoods 
has  noted  how  few  are  the  small  birds  inhabit- 
ing forests  of  tall  thickly-growing  timber ;  but 
these  glades,  set  in  the  midst  of  immense 
tracts  of  pine  and  oak  woods,  are  oases  of 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  139 

bird-life,  as  one  might  say,  where  in  the  sing- 
ing season  the  air  is  shaken  with  a  sweet  tu- 
mult of  voices.  Here  the  persevering  egg- 
collector  is  sure  to  find  the  delicately-tinted 
treasures  with  which  he  delights  to  decorate 
his  cabinet.  The  butcher-bird,  the  grosbeak, 
the  cat-bird,  the  wood-thrush,  the  brown- 
thrush,  the  robin,  the  blue-jay,  the  mocking- 
bird and  the  cuckoos  all  like  to  build  their 
nests  in  the  thorny  arms  of  the  haw  and  plum- 
trees.  All  these  birds  are,  in  a  degree,  bit- 
ter foes  of  each  other,  allowing  no  opportu- 
nity of  venting  a  little  spite  to  go  by  unim- 
proved, but  they  rarely  go  to  the  length  of 
committing  any  irreparable  wrong.  True,  the 
blue-jay  now  and  then  robs  a  nest  and  the 
shrike  may  impale  a  smaller  bird  on  a  thorn, 
but  these  acts  are  the  rare  exceptions  in  the 
mating  and  nesting  time. 

The  cuckoo,  however,  must  be  closely 
watched  by  all  the  rest  or  it  will  slip  its  egg 
into  a  stranger's  nest.  Our  American  bird  is 
very  sly  in  performing  this  parasitic  trick,  so 
common  to  the  European  species,  and  is 
guilty  of  a  sin  in  connection  therewith  which 
adds  greatly  to  the  ugliness  of  the  main  crime. 
I  am  led  to  believe,  on  the  strongest  circum- 
stantial evidence,  that  the  yellow-bill  species, 
at  least,  not  only  carries  its  egg  to  the  nest  of 
another  bird,  but  that  it  also  invariably  takes 
away  from  the  nest  one  of  the  eggs  rightfully 
there.  This  habit  is  a  very  curious  and  "in- 
teresting one.  Our  cuckoo  always  builds  a 
nest  of  its  own  and  rears  its  brood  with  ex- 
emplary care.  The  eggs  it  scatters  on  occa- 
sion here  and  there  in  strange  nests  are  prob- 
ably the  result  of  over- fecundity,  for  at  best 


HO          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

it  appears  to  be  erratic  in  its  laying,  the  eggs 
in  its  own  nest  varying  greatly  in  number  and 
in  development  stage. 

I  have  collected  and  arranged  all  the  ob- 
tainable facts  on  this  subject,  and  my  conclu- 
sions in  short  are :  That  the  cuckoo  of  North 
America,  more  especially  the  Yellow-bill,  may 
be  either  slowly  losing  or  slowly  gaining  the 
egg-depositing  or  parasitic  habit  of  the  Old- 
World  species  ;  that  it  is  exceedingly  eccen- 
tric, in  connection  with  this  habit,  acting  from 
the  impulse  of  accidental  necessity  on  account 
of  an  irregular  fecundity.  Its  nest-building 
habit  will  not  admit  of  its  rearing  a  large 
brood  of  young ;  its  eggs  must,  therefore,  be 
divided  among  the  nests  of  its  neighbors : 
that  is,  whenever  the  over-supply  comes  on. 
The  bird  itself,  as  regards  the  two  species 
(black-billed  and  yellow-billed)  with  which  I  am 
well  acquainted,  is  very  strangely  sly,  furtive, 
and  erratic  in  all  its  actions,  affecting  a  close 
observer  with  the  impression  that  it  is  all  the 
time  laboring  under  some  restrictions  or  lim- 
itations not  common  to  birds  in  general.  Its 
movements  are  graceful,  but  there  is  in  them 
something  that  suggests  unsubstantiality — the 
lightness  that  comes  of  an  ill-balanced  nature. 

Its  form  is  elongated  and  so  accentuated 
by  its  slender,  curving  bill  and  disproportion- 
ally  developed  tail,  that  it  appears  almost 
serpent-like  at  times,  as  it  creeps  with  a  noise- 
less gliding  motion  through  the  foliage. 
There  is  never  any  evidence  of  happiness  in 
its  actions  or  in  the  sound  of  its  voice.  On 
the  contrary,  the  cuckoo  appears  to  be  the 
embodiment  of  aimlessness,  restlessness,  and 
unmeaning  discontent.  Its  solemn,  almost 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  141 

gloomy,  hazel  eyes,  and  the  peculiar  way  it 
has  of  glaring  half-stupidly  at  one  when  one 
approaches  it,  adds  much  to  this  unbalanced 
effect.  In  flying  from  one  tree  to  another  it 
does  not  cut  straight  away  through  the  air, 
but  dives  downward,  nearly  to  the  ground, 
sometimes,  and  then  whirls  along  in  a  zig-zag, 
erratic  line,  rising  again  at  a  sharp  angle  be- 
fore alighting.  While  in  the  air  there  is  a 
sparkle  of  white  in  its  over-long  tail,  and  a 
sheen  of  greenish  silver-gray  along  its  neck 
and  back,  while  on  its  wings  trembles  the 
glint  of  burnished  copper  blended  with  red- 
dish cinnamon  tints. 

While  in  repose  it  may  be  described  as  fol- 
lows :  Bill  black  above,  yellow  below,  long, 
broad  at  base,  gently  curved ;  feet  lead-col- 
ored ;  back,  darkish  olive-gray  ;  under  parts, 
white  ;  wings  shot  with  vivid  cinnamon,  espe- 
cially on  inner  webs  of  quills ;  tail  bearing 
on  central  feathers  a  continuation  of  the  color 
of  the  back ;  outer  tail-feathers  tipped  and 
edged  with  clear,  pure  white.  Total  length, 
1 1. 50  inches;  alar  extent,  16.00  inches. 

Its  nest  when  built  in  an  orchard  differs  in 
construction  somewhat  from  its  wildwood 
architecture;  but  it  may  be  easily  identified 
by  the  open,  sketchy  effect  of  its  outlines,  its 
flatness  and  shallowness  and  the  presence  in 
its  texture  of  the  tassels  and  spikes  of  amen- 
taceous trees  carelessly  woven  through  the 
tangle  of  coarse  twigs  and  fragments  of  leaves. 
The  eggs,  deposited  irregularly  in  the  oval, 
saucer-like  cup,  are  of  a  very  delicate  greenish 
shade  of  color  not  easy  to  describe.  I  have 
found  occasionally  as  many  as  seven  in  a  nest, 
though  four  is  the  usual  number. 


142          BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

Our  cuckoo  is  not  an  "  egg-sucker,"  so  far 
as  my  observation  goes.  The  popular  tradi- 
tion giving  him  that  villanous  habit,  has 
arisen,  no  doubt,  from  the  fact  that  he  has 
been  seen  with  an  egg  in  his  mouth.  I  can 
think  of  no  wildwood  effect  more  likely  to 
gain  a  lasting  lodgment  in  one's  memory  than 
the  appearance  of  this  bird  flying  along  with 
an  egg  between  its  mandibles,  seeking  some 
other  bird's  nest  in  which  to  safely  lodge  this 
surplus  fruit  of  an  erratic  habit. 

The  Black-billed  species  (C.  erythrophthal- 
mus)  is  a  little  smaller  than  the  Yellow-bill, 
and  far  less  singularly  interesting.  It  lacks 
the  white  sparkle  in  the  tail  and  the  bright 
reddish  copper  wing-glint,  as  well  as  the  dash 
of  yellow  on  the  lower  mandible  ;  otherwise  it 
is  much  the  same  in  appearance  with  C.  ameri- 
canus. 

I  once  had  a  bush-tent  built  of  fragrant 
•pine  and  cedar  boughs  at  the  margin  of  a 
glade,  not  far  from  the  bank  of  the  Coosa- 
wattee,  where  I  spent  a  fortnight  in  the  sys- 
tematic study  of  the  yellow-billed  cuckoo,  the 
lesser  shrike,  the  mocking-bird  and  the  cat- 
bir<j.  This  period  extended  from  about  the 
loth  to  the  25th  of  April.  All  around  the 
glade  grew  honey-locust  trees,  haw-bushes, 
crab-apple  and  wild-plum  thickets  and  dense 
tangles  of  blackberry  vines.  Everything  was 
heavy  with  leaf  and  bloom  ;  fragrance  loaded 
the  air,  and  the  birds  all  appeared  in  a  great 
hurry  to  build.  I  could  sit  in  my  tent  door 
during  the  dewy  morning  hour  and  watch  the 
love- passages,  the  quarrels,  the  rights,  the  nest- 
ing troubles  and  triumphs  of  these  gay  things 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  143 

with  not  a  waft  from  the  busy  human  world  to 
disturb  my  enjoyment. 

A  pair  of  yellow-billed  cuckoos  were  build- 
ing a  nest,  after  their  desultory,  aimless  fash- 
ion, in  a  scrubby  tree  over  which  a  mass  of 
the  Southern  green-briar  vines  had  grown. 
The  bough  upon  which  the  beginnings  of  the 
nest-skeleton  appeared,  was  not  more  than 
forty  feet  distant  from  my  door,  so  that,  bar- 
ring some  slender  intervening  twigs,  I  had  a 
clear  view  of  all  the  building  processes.  One 
curious  and  noteworthy  habit  of  the  cuckoo 
was  observed,  of  which  I  have  never  seen 
mention  in  any  ornithological  work.  In  carry- 
ing a  limber  twig  or  leaf-fragment,  the  bird 
gripped  one  end  of  it  with  its  foot  and*the 
other  with  its  bill ;  a  trick  which  enabled  it  to 
pass  through  the  tangled  vines  and  branches 
without  much  difficulty  on  account  of  its  bur- 
den. 

During  my  stay  at  this  glade  the  nights  were 
rendered  glorious  by  a  strong  moon  and  a 
clear  atmosphere.  Several  times  I  heard,  be- 
tween midnight  and  dawn,  the  cry  of  the 
Yellow-bill  uttered  in  a  suppressed  tone  from 
the  densest  part  of  a  thicket.  It  may  have 
been  a  mocking-bird.  I  tried  in  vain  to  be 
sure,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  cuckoo 
itself  uttered  the  calls.  If  it  was  a  mocking- 
bird the  weird  reserve-force  apparent  in  the 
expression  and  timbre  of  the  imitative  passage 
did  infinite  credit  to  the  famous  low-country 
songster's  incomparable  vocal  powers. 

It  is  strangely  difficult  to  make  out  the  exact 
location  of  a  bird  by  its  cry  at  night,  especially 
in  a  wooded  place.  I  tried  to  discover  the 
roosting-place  of  my  cuckoos  ;  but  watch  them 


1 44          BY- WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

closely  as  I  could,  they  evaded  me.  They  ap- 
peared not  to  care  much  for  each  other's 
company,  save  when  in  a  loving  mood,  and  I 
think  they  roosted  without  any  reference  to 
companionship.  Early  in  the  morning,  how- 
ever, the  pair  found  each  other  out,  and  joined 
in  the  labor  of  nest-building  or  the  pursuit  of 
caterpillars  and  other  leaf-eating  insect  forms, 
with  a  reasonable  show  of  conjugal  unity  of 
purpose. 

Their  nest  progressed  very  slowly  and 
jerkily.  Now  and  again,  for  two  or  three  days 
together,  nothing  was  done  to  it,  then  for  two 
or  three  hours  the  work  would  be  unceasing. 
They  behaved  themselves  after  the  manner 
of  awkward  and  not  very  apt  tyros  in  the  art. 
The  male  was  even  silly  in  some  of  his  per- 
formances, time  and  again  carrying  away  from 
the  nest  a  stick  (that  had  previously  been 
worked  into  it  witn  great  labor  and  care), 
apparently  in  a  fit  of  absent-mindedness. 

This  unaccountable  listlessness  or  charac- 
teristic oddity  of  behavior  is  not  confined  to 
the  genus  now  under  consideration,  but  runs 
like  a  family  taint  through  the  whole  catalogue 
of  cuculidce.  The  ground-cuckoo  (Geococcyx 
californianus)  is  an  embodiment  of  drollness 
and  absurdity.  The  Ani  (Crotophaga  ani) 
is  another  very  interesting  kinsman  of  our  bird  ; 
but  instead  of  scattering  its  eggs  among  the 
nests  of  other  families  it  has  the  opposite 
habit,  several  females  laying  their  eggs  and 
together  incubating  them  in  the  same  nest ! 

The  Cucuhis  canorus  of  Linnaeus,  which  is 
the  cuckow  or  cuckoo  of  England  and  Africa, 
has  attracted  more  attention  than  any  other 
bird  in  the  world.  Some  very  strange  facts 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  145 

touching  its  history  have  been  gathered.  It 
would  indeed  fill  quite  a  volume  if  one  should 
give  only  a  compendium  of  cuckoo  literature, 
most  of  which  refers  to  the  European  bird. 
Quite  a  discussion  was  precipitated  into  scien- 
tific circles  when,  some  thirty  years  or  more 
ago,  a  distinguished  gentleman  propounded 
the  statement  that  a  cuckoo  invariably  colored 
her  egg  to  coincide  with  those  in  the  nest 
chosen  as  the  place  of  deposit.  A  cabinet  of 
eggs,  claimed  to  be  those  of  the  cuckoo  and 
those  of  the  birds  in  whose  nests  they  had 
been  found,  was  arranged  for  the  purpose  of 
demonstrating  the  apparent  truth  of  the  start- 
ling theory  ;  but  notwithstanding  many  curi- 
ous facts,  it  could  not  be  maintained. 

It  remains  pretty  well  settled,  however,  that 
the  eggs  of  Cuculus  canorus  may  now  and 
then  vary  in  color,  somewhat  in  accordance 
with  the  hereditary  individuality  of  the  partic- 
ular bird,  and  that  each  female  cuckoo  may 
instinctively  choose,  as  a  rule,  to  deposit  her 
egg  in  a  nest  with  those  of  a  bird  laying  eggs 
of  nearly  or  quite  the  same  color. 

So  eccentric  and  variable  is  the  Yellow-bill 
in  its  habits,  that  it  is  not  at  all  wonderful 
that  much  doubt  has  existed  as  to  whether  it 
is  parasitic ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  it  does, 
irregularly,  under  stress  of  over-fecundity,  slip 
an  egg  occasionally  into  the  nest  of  another 
bird,  and  this  habit  and  others  characteristic 
of  the  genus,  appear  to  be  imperfectly  formed 
as  yet,  or  else  they  are  being  gradually  aban- 
doned. 

This  apparent  tendency  towards  sloughing 
hereditary  habits,  or  acquiring  new  ones,  is 
noticeable  in  several  of  our  American  birds, 
10 


146          B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

notably  in  some  species  of  woodpecker ;  but 
our  cuckoos  are  the  best  instances  for  study. 
A  good  binocular  glass  and  a  season  or  two 
of  patient  observation  will  enable  any  intelli- 
gent person  to  detect  a  great  deal  of  evidence 
of  this  tendency  in  cuckoos.  The  yellow- 
billed  species  carries  its  vacillating  nature 
on  its  sleeve,  as  it  were,  and  forces  it  upon 
consideration.  The  black-billed  species  is 
scarcely  less  peculiar  at  most  points  ;  if  there 
is  a  difference  it  is  ot  degree  only.  Even  the 
ground  cuckoo  (Geococcyx  californianus),  is 
almost  absurdly  peculiar  and  outre  in  its 
habits.  Dr.  Coues  says  :  "  They  are  singular 
birds — cuckoos  compounded  of  a  chicken  and 
a  magpie  !  They  prefer  running  on  the  ground 
to  flying,  only  using  their  wings  as  auxiliary 
'  outriggers '  while  darting  .along  at  almost 
race-horse  speed."  Dr.  Coues  notes  in  the 
nest  of  this  species  the  same  slightness  and 
apparent  awkwardness  of  construction  so 
marked  in  all  cuckoo  nests,  "  As  if,"  he  says, 
"  the  birds  were  just  learning  how  to  build." 

Our  Yellow-bill  may  be  taken  as  the  strong- 
est type  of  this  strange  family.  Haunting  our 
bloom-burdened  and  odorous  Spring  groves, 
like  some  restless  spirit  of  remorse,  furtively, 
dreamily,  but  ever  with  a  look  of  suppressed 
pain,  it  has  affected  the  popular  mind  as  if 
with  a  superstition  borne  upon  its  own  wings 
from  some  undiscovered  country.  Its  voice 
is  considered  ominous  not  only  of  rain  and 
storm,  but  of  evil  in  all  its  mysterious  and 
undefined  forms.  Of  course  this  is  an  idle 
popular  delusion  ;  but  it  serves  to  point  out 
the  exceedingly  well-defined  power  resident 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  147 

in  any  form  of  mystery,  even  if  but  the  quasi- 
mystery  of  a  cuckoo's  ways ! 

Indeed,  the  bird,  its  habits,  its  individuality 
and  eccentricity  of  nesting  and  of  oviposition, 
and  its  half-mystified  expression  of  the  eye,  its 
hesitating,  skulking  flight,  and  its  evident 
lapses  into  absent-mindedness,  may  well  serve 
to  impress  one's  imagination,  at  least,  with  a 
suggestion  of  a  transition  state  through  which 
Cuckoo  is  passing  to  a  lower  or  higher  grade 
of  character. 

One  day,  as  I  was  going  down  the  Salliquoy, 
a  small  tributary  of  the  Coosawattee  River,  I 
saw  from  my  pirogue  a  cuckoo's,  nest  on  a  low 
branch  of  a  water-oak.  The  female  was 
crouching  on  the  insecure  looking  pile  of 
sticks  in  utter  terror,  while  a  whole  pack  of 
blue-jays  were  screeching  and  fluttering  in  the 
foliage  above  it.  I  shall  not  soon  forget  the 
expression  of  that  bird's  great  solemn  eyes. 
Evidently  the  poor  thing  felt  that  a  dreadful 
fate  was  impending  over  it.  But  the  fact  was 
that  the  blue-jays  were  worrying  a  little 
screech-owl  that  had  ventured  into  the  day- 
light, and  which  was  now  cowering  in  its 
stolid  way  on  another  branch  of  the  tree  near 
the  nest. 

Our  Cuckoo,  though  not  notably  combative, 
will  fight  with  great  fury  in  defence  of  its 
young,  and  the  males  engage  in  fierce  silent 
struggles  for  supremacy  during  the  early  part 
of  the  mating  season. 

The  nesting  area  of  the  Yellow-bill  extends 
from  Florida  to  Michigan,  and  from  the  Atlan- 
tic coast  to  some  line  west  of  the  Mississippi 
River,  and  I  am  inclined  to  regard  the  black- 
billed  species  as  having  nearly  the  same  limits 


1 48          BY- WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

of  habitat.  To  what  distance  Canada  is  in- 
vaded by  either  or  both  seems  left  in  some 
doubt. 

Whilst  the  cuckoos  of  eastern  North  Amer- 
ica are  technically  frugiverous,  they  are  not, 
so  far  as  my  observation  serves  me,  strictly 
fruit-eating  within  the  general  and  popular 
meaning  of  the  term.  I  have  never  seen 
either  of  the  two  common  species  taste  any  of 
the  small  fruits,  wild  or  tame.  They  probably 
eat  seeds  at  need,  but  their  chief  food  is  in- 
sects— the  caterpillars,  moths,  butterfly-eggs 
and  various  larvae  found  on  the  leaves  and 
branches  of  trees. 

The  Cuckoo's  habits  may  be  studied  to 
advantage  by  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble 
to  scan  with  care  almost  any  apple-orchard  in 
Spring  and  be  guided  to  the  bird  by  that  half- 
solemn,  half-comical  cry  uttered  at  intervals, 
which  may  be  phonetically  rendered  thus : 
"  Kauwk,  kauwk,  kauwk  kuk — kuk — kuk — kuk 
— k — k — k — k,  kauwk,  kauwk,  kauwk!"  In 
uttering  this  singular  call  or  cry,  the  bird  be- 
gins slowly,  the  two  or  three  leading  notes 
coming  forth  at  nearly  equal  intervals,  then 
the  succeeding  ones  are  produced  with  rapidly 
increasing  quickness,  until  they  run  together 
into  a  sort  of  rattling  noise,  succeeded  by  a 
repetition  of  the  opening  cries.  Loud,  harsh, 
peculiarly  doleful,  the  voice  of  the  rain-crow, 
as  the  bird  is  vulgarly  called,  rings  through 
our  woods  and  orchards,  more  especially  in 
cloudy  weather,  with  an  accent  far  from  cheer- 
ing or  pleasing.  Hence  has  arisen  the  unwar- 
ranted ill-feeling  existing  in  rural  districts 
against  this  very  best  bird-friend  known  to  our 
farmers  and  fruit-growers.  The  cuckoos 


CUCKOO  NOTES.  149 

should  be  protected  and  their  propagation  en- 
couraged, as  they  are  the  saviours  of  our  for- 
ests, our  orchards,  and  our  hedges. 

Looking  over  my  cuckoo-notes,  I  find  re- 
minders in  them  of  all  the  sweetest  woodland 
solitudes  between  the  Great  Lakes  and  the 
Gulf.  The  bubbling  of  the  cold  trout-brooks 
of  the  Leelenaw  blends  with  the  lazy  swash  of 
the  Pearl  River  and  the  Kissiinmee. 

But  I  must  hasten  to  remark  that,  contrary  to 
what  one  is  led  to  expect,  in  all  the  low  country 
of  the  South  the  cuckoos  are  scarce,  even  in 
mid-winter.  In  the  region  of  Lake  Okeechobee 
and  on  the  outskirt  of  the  Everglades  close  ob- 
servation failed  to  certainly  note  even  the  spe- 
cies C.  seniculus  or  mangrove-cuckoo.  From 
the  fact  that  the  Yellow-bill  is  found  on  the 
Pacific  coast  and  in  parts  of  the  Southern 
Rocky  Mountains,  it  is  probable  that  its  winter 
resort  may  be  chiefly  in  Mexico  and  Central 
America.  In  March  I  saw  a  few  specimens 
haunting  the  oak  groves  on  the  high-lands  be- 
tween Tallahassee,  Florida,  and  Thomasville, 
Georgia,  and  I  was  told  that  their  nests  were 
sometimes  seen  there. 

So  many  cuckoo  legends  have  gone  afloat 
— each  adding  something  uncanny  or  roman- 
tic to  the  popular  opinion  of  our  harmless  bird 
— that  I  am  tempted  to  close  this  paper  with 
one  current  in  the  southern  mountainous  region, 
to  the  effect  that  the  Yellow-bill  cannot  be  killed 
by  a  rifle-shot  if  its  breast  be  turned  towards 
the  shooter.  I  once  attempted  to  demon- 
strate the  fallacy  of  this  claim  for  the  benefit 
of  a  hard-headed  old  mountaineer  and  was  un- 
lucky enough  to  miss  my  bird  ! 

"  Ther' ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  what'd  I  tell  ye  ! 


1 50          BY- WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

ye   mought   es   well   shoot   at   a  ghost,  er  a 
spirit." 

The  secret  of  the  matter  is  that  the  cuckoo's 
breast  is  sheeny  white  and  presents  a  very  slen- 
der mark,  which  on  account  of  its  being  just 
the  color  of  the  silver  fore-sight  of  the  com- 
mon rifle,  is  very  difficult  to  "  draw  a  bead  ' 
upon  ;  wherefore  even  the  most  expert  marks- 
man is  apt  to  miss  it. 


SOME  MINOR  SONG-BIRDS. 

OUR  interest  in  wild  song-birds  must  in- 
crease apace  with  the  narrowing  of  our  wooded 
areas,  and  in  proportion  to  the  constant  lessen- 
ing of  our  opportunities  for  ornithological 
study  at  first  hand.  As  our  thrushes  and 
orioles  and  warblers  one  by  one  take  flight, 
we  suddenly,  in  realizing  our  loss,  feel  in  a 
new  way  the  sweetness  of  their  voices.  When 
we  were  children,  even  if  we  lived  in  the  heart 
of  the  city,  we  often  had  glimpses  of  the 
country  with  its  great  dense  woods  and  its 
green  fields,  its  orchards,  and  its  cottages 
covered  with  morning-glory  vines.  In  those 
days  the  brown-thrush,  the  cat-bird,  and  the 
cardinal  grosbeak,  sang  in  every  thicket  and 
throughout  every  orchard.  Now  these  charm- 
ing little  lyrists  are  gone  from  many  a  former 
haunt ;  indeed  there  are  wide  areas  of  country, 
where  they  used  to  nest  and  sing,  in  which 
they  never  will  be  seen  in  a  wild  state  again. 

Not  long  since  I  returned,  after  twenty 
years'  absence,  to  a  neighborhood  in  which 
my  infancy  was  spent.  I  remembered  a  cer- 
tain brook  in  a  little  field,  a  crooked  lazy  little 
stream  bordered  with  yellow  willows  and  water 
hazel,  where  the  cat-bird  loved  to  swing  and 
sing  in  shade  and  sun.  It  was  with  an  inde- 
scribable regret  that  I  found  the  willows  and 
hazel  all  gone  and  the  brook,  sunken  under 
ground,  groping  its  way  through  tubular  tiles. 
Where  wide  woods  of  beech  and  sugar-trees 


1 52          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

used  to  be,  fields  of  wheat  and  corn  lay  green 
and  smooth  almost  to  the  horizon's  rim.  What 
a  loss  the  absent  birds  were  felt  to  be !  In 
fact,  when,  after  much  plaintive  sauntering 
over  the  altered  grounds,  I  chanced  to  hear  a 
lonely  purple  finch  twittering  in  a  hedge  of 
bois  d'arc,  I  felt  a  thrill  of  delight  which  was 
like  an  electric  message  from  my  childhood's 
days.  In  the  streets  of  the  village  which  had 
shrunken,  as  if  in  some  mysterious  proportion 
to  the  widening  of  the  surrounding  plains  of 
agricultural  thrift,  foraged  a  well-fed  flock  of 
detestable  English  sparrows.  This,  I  thought, 
is  advanced  enlightenment — a  covered  ditch 
for  a  brook,  a  _prim  hedge  in  lieu  of  a  wild 
plum  thicket,  an  orchard  displacing  an  odor- 
ous grove  of  wild  crab-apple  and  these  pests 
of  sparrows  usurping  the  homes  of  the  cardi- 
nal-bird and  the  thrushes ! 

From  almost  any  little  country  town,  even 
in  the  West,  one  must  now,  as  a  rule,  make  a 
long  flight  into  the  most  neglected  nooks  of 
the  rural  neighborhoods,  before  one  can  find 
the  haunts  of  the  more  interesting  songsters. 
The  elect  few  of  the  feathered  choir,  like  the 
choice  spirits  of  the  outer  circle  of  young 
poets,  are  fond  of  utter,  limitless  freedom  ; 
they  do  not  relish  the  fragrance,  however 
sweet,  of  over-cultured  gardens  and  bowers. 
True  enough,  the  blue-bird  warbles  very  con- 
tentedly on  the  best  kept  fence-row  as  he 
watches  the  ploughman  turn  up  the  tid-bits  from 
the  furrow  ;  and  it  is  an  almost  savage  ten- 
derness that  quavers  from  his  throat  as  he 
pounces  upon  the  dislodged  worm,  his  wings 
gleaming  like  some  precious,  doubly  purified 


SOME  MINOR  SONG-BIRDS.  153 

gems  fresh  from  the  fabled  fires  of  the  em- 
pyrean. 

Reading  the  above  sentence  over,  I  feel  its 
coarseness  in  the  presence  of  a  genuine  blue- 
bird-sheen and  blue-bird-warble  reaching  me 
as  I  write.  How  artificial  and  insincere  are 
the  verbal  rhapsodies  of  the  most  natural  of 
our  poets  when  set  in  the  searching  light  of 
unconscious  nature !  Why  do  not  the  blue- 
bird's notes,  arranged  always  in  the  same 
order  and  expressed  always  with  precisely  the 
same  tone,  accent,  and  emphasis,  become 
stale  ?  Why  does  not  the  bird's  manner  grow 
perfunctory  ?  Who  ever  did  get  weary  of  hear- 
ing over  and  over,  from  day  to  day,  spring 
after  spring,  those  liquid  bird-phrases  that, 
pitched  to  a  strange  minor,  have  been  the 
same  since  first  an  oscine  throat  was  filled 
with  music  ?  We  must  all,  even  the  most  un- 
imaginative of  us,  acknowledge  a  little  impulse 
to  gush  and  get  rid  of  a  fine  fury  of  sentiment 
about  the  time  when  a  flash  of  green,  a  thrill 
of  warmth  and  balm,  and  a  gush  of  bird-song 
go  across  the  fields  and  woods. 

The  man  who  can  look  into  a  bird's  nest, 
well-set  with  tender-hued  eggs,  without  feeling 
an  inward  smile,  as  if  his  soul  were  sweetly 
pleased,  has  lost  something  that  is  the  chief 
ingredient  of  perfect  sanity  and  simplicity. 
What  is  usually  meant  by  the  word  sentiment- 
ality is  an  abomination;  but  our  human  na- 
ture, in  a  state  of  absolute  health,  is  furnished 
with  a  myriad  little  well-springs  of  generous 
sympathy  and  sweet  responsiveness,  that 
should  not  be  allowed  to  go  dry.  If  the  fra- 
grant, essential  elements  of  a  healthy  soul 
may  be  called  sentiments,  then  let  sentiment- 


r 54          BY- WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

ality  bubble  like  brooks  in  spring  and  gush 
like  the  thrush's  song  in  nesting  time. 

Bird-hunting  and  bird-loving  folk  get  the 
very  best  out  of  life  in  the  way  of  sensuous 
pleasures  not  in  the  least  voluptuous  or  over- 
stimulating.  Just  now,  looking  back  over  my 
notes,  observations  and  recollections  of  out- 
door life,  my  long  association  with  most  of  our 
minor  song-birds  appears  something  well  worth 
having  experienced.  Much  of  what  I  remem- 
ber is  knowledge  of  a  kind  scarcely  communi- 
cable by  any  literary  or  artistic  means,  or  by 
any  method  of  natural  expression.  Once  I 
heard  a  blue-jay  sing  as  sweetly  as  the  mock- 
ing-bird when  trilling  in  a  tender  minor  key. 
I  could  hardly  believe  my  own  sight  and  hear- 
ing as  the  beautiful,  tricksy  creature  sat  before 
me  with  drooping  crest  and  half-raised  wings, 
swaying  his  body  lightly  up  and  down  and 
uttering  a  low,  almost  bewildering  flute  medley, 
full  of  the  cadences  of  dreams. 

Still  the  blue-jay  is  not  reckoned  among  the 
singing  birds  by  those  who  are  not  close  ob- 
servers. His  common  notes,  though  occasion- 
ally musical  and  sweet,  are,  as  a  rule,  harsh 
and  ill-tempered ;  a  very  imaginative  person 
might  conclude  that  the  dolefully  tender  song 
I  heard  was  the  result  of  a  fit  of  remorse,  on 
the  blue-jay's  part,  for  myriads  of  sins  com- 
mitted against  the  nests,  the  eggs,  and  the 
young  of  other  and  weaker  birds.  How  often 
I  have  witnessed  acts  of  the  most  brutal  cruelty 
done  by  the  jay  in  apparently  the  quietest 
mood  imaginable ! 

I  recall  an  instance  now :  A  sparrow  had  a 
nest  with  young  in  a  clump  of  lilac-bushes  on 
a  lawn  in 'front  of  a  room  I  was  occupying. 


SOME  MINOR  SON'G-BIRDS.  155 

One  morning  about  sunrise,  as  I  sat  by  a 
window,  writing,  I  heard  the  mother-bird 
"  chipping  "  dolefully,  and  I  looked  out  just 
in  time  to  see  a  blue-jay  kill,  by  a  deft  turn 
of  its  powerful  bill,  the  last  remaining  fledgling 
of  the  brood.  The  assassin  then  proceeded 
to  tear  up  the  tiny  nest,  after  which  he  very 
perfunctorily  flew  away  !  Here  was  a  case  of 
utter  depravity — a  piece  of  unmitigated  out- 
rage for  which  there  could  have  been  no  mo- 
tive aside  from  the  impulse  of  a  viciousness 
incomparable.  I  went  to  the  spot,  and  found 
the  young  sparrows  scattered  on  the  ground, 
dead  in  the  midst  of  the  shreds  of  the  nest. 
Each  bird  bore  the  livid  pincer-like  impres- 
sion of  the  jay's  beak.  I  cannot  account  for 
this  well-known  brutality  of  the  jay  ;  it  does  not 
appear  to  be  always  present  with  it,  for  I  have 
known  it  to  live  in  perfect  peace  with  other  birds, 
nesting  in  the  same  orchard  and  even  in  the 
same  tree.  Its  colors  and  its  restless  activity 
make  the  blue-jay  one  of  the  most  valuable 
elements  of  almost  every  bit  of  thicket  or 
hedge  throughout  our  Middle  and  Southern 
States  for  nearly  the  whole  year. 

I  am  aware  that  many  objections  may  be 
urged  to  putting  so  harsh  a  screecher  in  the 
catalogue  of  music-making  birds;  but  it  can 
and  does  occasionally  sing  most  superbly. 
Moreover,  upon  being  dissected,  the  blue-jay's 
throat  shows  a  very  high  state  of  development, 
the  muscular  arrangement  of  the  lower  larynx 
bearing  every  sign  of  great  flexibility  and  of 
delicate  adjustment.  It  is  a  hardy  bird,  often 
met  with  in  midwinter  far  north  of  the  fortieth 
degree  of  latitude,  apparently  quite  happy 
among  the  sleety  and  snowy  branches  of  the 


1 56          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

leafless  trees.  It  is  a  good  nest-builder,  and 
provides  for  its  young  with  a  great  show  of 
affection  and  industry  It  customarily  keeps 
near  the  ground,  but  I  have  observed  large 
flocks  high  up  in  the  air,  migrating  southward 
in  autumn. 

Turning  from  a  provokingly  dual  subject — 
the  paradoxical  nature  of  our  jay — one  feels 
relieved  in  speaking  of  the  genial  and  melodi- 
ous life  of  the  brown-thrush.  Next  to  the 
mocking-bird  the  most  famous  singer  of  our 
woods,  this  beautiful  little  fellow,  with  his 
snuff-colored  coat  and  dappled  vest,  is  welcome 
wherever  he  goes.  My  observations  of  his 
habits  extend  over  a  wide  area  reaching  from 
Northern  Indiana  to  Florida,  and  I  have  no 
vicious  trait  of  his  character  to  record.  In 
the  mountains  of  East  Tennessee,  and  among 
the  hills  of  North  Carolina  and  Georgia, 
brown-thrushes  are  almost  as  common  as  are 
blackbirds  in  the  flat  fields  of  Illinois.  The 
thickets  that  rim  the  glades,  especially  the  wild 
orchards  of  haw  and  crab-apple,  plum  and 
honey-locust,  are  the  favorite  nesting-places 
of  this  bird ;  but  he  chooses  the  topmost  tuft 
of  the  tallest  tree  for  his  perch  while  singing. 
His  song,  full-toned,  loud,  clear,  varied,  is 
often  mistaken  by  casual  listeners  for  that  of 
the  mocking-bird,  though  really  far  inferior  to 
it  in  both  volume  and  compass,  and  scarcely 
to  be  compared  with  it  in  purity  of  resonance. 
In  the  far  South,  where  all  birds  are  given  to 
greater  latitude  of  habit  than  in  the  North,  the 
brown-thrush  now  and  then  sings  in  the  night, 
a  low,  dreamy,  lulling  song,  warbled  as  if  with 
a  sleepy  'throat.  In  this  too  he  follows,  but 
does  not  equal,  the  mocking-bird.  I  have 


SOME  MINOR  SONG-BIRDS.  157 

habitually  slept  in  a  hammock  while  outing  in 
the  Southern  woods,  and  no  words  can  convey 
the  singularly  delicious  sense  of  calm  and 
quiet  luxury  which  comes  of  hearing,  far  in  the 
solemn  night,  the  low,  liquid,  drowsy  nocturne 
of  one  or  both  of  these  charming  musicians  ! 

The  brown-thrush  has  not  had  his  full  meed 
of  praise  from  our  poets.  As  a  conventional 
figure,  the  nightingale — a  bird  quite  unknown 
to  Americans — has  retained  its  place  on  the 
palette  of  our  word-painters,  much  to  the  hurt 
of  our  poetry.  In  fact,  I  fancy  I  can  go 
through  American  poetry  and  point  out  every 
passage  wherein  an  author  has  alluded  to  a 
bird  that  he  has  never  seen.  How  can  any  one 
describe  the  fragrance  of  sweet-clover  without 
having  it  in  his  nostrils  at  the  moment  of  writ- 
ing ?  How  can  I  write  sincerely  about  the  song 
of  the  brown-thrush  or  the  cat-bird,  if  I  have 
not  the  stimulus  of  that  song  in  my  brain  ? 

In  the  far-reaching  tangles  of  wild  grape- 
vines, found  here  and  there  in  the  beautiful 
little  valleys  of  North  Georgia,  the  brown- 
thrushes  sing  to  the  perfection  of  their  powers 
from  the  early  days  of  April  until  the  first  of 
June  ;  that  is,  they  make  the  vine-masses  their 
home,  and  do  their  melodious  gushing  on  the 
very  topmost  boughs  of  the  highest  trees. 
This  is  not  over-statement ;  it  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  sights  of  the  Southern  woods  to 
see  a  brown-thrush  at  about  sunrise,  sitting  on 
the  apex  of  the  cone-shaped  top  of  a  giant 
pine-tree,  whilst  its  song  falls  in  a  shower  of 
fragmentary  and  ecstatic  trills  and  quavers 
over  all  the  surrounding  woods.  This  per- 
formance often  extends  over  the  space  of  an 
hour  or  more,  with  but  slight  intermissions. 


1 58          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

The  nest  of  the  brown-thrush  is  a  straggling 
mass  of  twigs,  roots,  bark,  leaves,  and  weed- 
stems,  carelessly  tumbled  into  a  crotch  near 
the  ground,  or  on  the  flat  projection  of  a  fence- 
rail,  sometimes  even  on  the  ground.  Its  eggs 
are  delicately  pretty,  whitish  or  pale  green, 
flecked  thickly  with  brown,  from  four  to  six 
in  number. 

North  of  the  Cumberland  Range  of  Mount- 
ains, the  brown-thrush  is  migratory ;  but  in 
parts  of  Tennessee  and  North  Georgia  I  have 
found  it  a  permanent  resident,  especially  in 
the  brushy  valleys.  It  is  a  hardier  bird  than 
the  mocking-bird. 

The  cat-bird  (what  a  name !)  is  one  of  the 
finest  singers  in  the  world — beautiful,  too; 
but,  for  some  mysterious  reason,  under  a  ban 
of  disgrace  and  contempt  throughout  its  wide 
habitat.  You  may  know  him  by  his  dark 
slate-colored  coat  and  gray  vest,  his  black  cap 
and  chestnut-brown  under  tail-coverts,  as  well 
as  by  his  peculiar  cat-like  mew  when  irritated. 
He  is  a  lyrist  of  the  dense  thickets  and  brier 
tangles,  the  musical  deity  of  our  blackberry 
jungles  and  bois  d'arc  hedges.  His  song  re- 
sembles that  of  the  brown-thrush,  but  it  is 
slenderer  and  keener,  trickling  through  the 
leaves  in  a  tenuous  stream  with  ripples  as 
light  as  air. 

The  nest  of  this  species  is  well  constructed, 
hung  low,  and  its  eggs  are  of  a  lovely  deep 
greenish  blue. 

The  cardinal-grosbeak  is  one  of  our  Ameri- 
can songsters,  which,  though  much  persecuted 
by  fanciers  and  imprisoned  in  cages,  is  not 
justly  appreciated.  His  brilliant  red  plumage 
and  smart  manners  have  been  much  better 


SOME  MINOR  SONG-BIRDS.  159 

studied  than  his  sweet  and  powerful  vocaliza- 
tion. His  notes  are  few,  but  the  compass  and 
volume  of  his  voice,  and  the  vivid  force  of  ex- 
pression he  commands,  are  without  rival. 
Not  even  the  mocking-bird  can  equal  him  in 
his  one  circle  of  execution.  He  sings  with 
true  American  energy,  flinging  out  his  notes 
as  if  from  a  clarion.  His  attitudes  are  those 
of  unbounded  self-confidence ;  he  appears  to 
claim  the  whole  world  as  his  own,  as  he  stands 
bolt  upright  on  a  bough,  his  crest  erect,  his 
bold  eyes  flashing,  and  his  voice  leaping  out 
with  the  impulse  of  a  diminutive  steam-whistle. 
He  is  a  wary,  shy,  swift  bird,  but  his  color  ex- 
poses him  to  the  watchful  collector,  who  is 
ever  eager  to  take  him.  The  cardinal's  nest 
is  well-built,  usually  set  in  a  tangled  place  of 
a  thicket.  Its  eggs  are  of  a  mottled  reddish- 
brown  color. 

In  the  region  of  Tallulah  Falls  I  met  with 
an  old  man  whose  chief  business  was  snaring 
red-birds  (cardinals)  for  the  sake  of  their  skins, 
which  he  sold  to  a  New  York  firm  for  use  in 
millinery  decorations.  Most  of  his  work  was 
done  in  the  mating  season,  when  with  a  trained 
decoy-bird  and  a  cage  furnished  with  side- 
springes,  he  took  great  numbers.  The  method 
was  to  hang  the  cage,  of  open  wire-work,  with 
a  live  male  bird  in  it,  on  a  bough  in  the  midst 
of  a  thicket.  The  springes  at  the  sides  of  the 
cage  were  so  arranged  that  no  sooner  did  a 
visiting  bird  alight  thereon  than  he  was  caught. 
The  captive  left  alone  calls  loudly  and  is  an- 
swered by  a  female  who  comes  near.  This 
excites  the  jealousy  of  her  lord,  who  dashes  at 
the  cage  and  dies.  The  old  man  had  four  of 
these  murderous  contrivances,  and  was  reaping 


160          BY- WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

a  considerable  profit  from  them.  He  under- 
stood his  business  perfectly,  going  about  it 
with  great  energy,  but  evincing  no  enthusiasm 
or  especial  feeling  of  any  kind. 

In  the  thickly  settled  States  of  the  West  the 
orchards  and  hedges  are,  in  spring-time,  the 
abodes  of  many  singing  birds.  The  field-spar- 
row is  chief  among  these,  showing  off  his  ex- 
quisite vocal  gifts  about  the  time  that  the 
young  wheat  is  ankle  high.  His  life  is  mostly 
spent  on  the  ground  where  he  runs  through 
thick  grass  or  cereal  sward  with  a  rapidity  like 
that  of  the  ousel  in  water.  When  the  lyrical 
mood  comes  on  he  mounts  to  the  top  of  a 
stump,  a  hedge  or  a  fence,  and  pours  forth  a  very 
sweet  little  carol,  meantime  elevating  his  head 
to  the  full  extent  of  his  neck,  and  puffing  out  his 
little  throat  after  the  manner  of  a  toad. 

The  orioles  and  some  of  the  warblers  have 
cheerful  voices,  but  can  scarcely  be  called  fine 
singers.  They  give  a  dash  of  freshness  to  our 
groves  when  they  arrive  early  from  the  South, 
and,  like  our  blue-bird,  are  always  welcome. 

Speaking  of  the  blue-bird,  he  is  uniquely 
American.  He  has  no  kin  on  the  other  con- 
tinents. He  appears  to  be  a  flake  of  the  ce- 
rulean above,  let  fall,  by  a  special  dispensa- 
tion, upon  our  favored  country.  Like  some 
poets,  he  is  always  just  about  to  sing,  but  never 
does  more  than  begin  his  song.  His  frag- 
ments are  divine,  however,  suggesting  a  reserve 
of  something  too  sweet  and  fine  for  the  com- 
mon winds  to  bear.  His  is  a  rhythmical  na- 
ture, and  his  flight  is  a  poem  in  itself.  As  he 
goes  trembling  and  wavering  along  through 
the  air  and  sunshine,  he  adds  to  a  May-day 
just  the  touch  that  makes  it  perfect.  The 


SOME  MINOR  SONG-BIRDS.  161 

blue-bird  in  its  nest-habit  offers  for  our  study 
one  of  those  curious  contradictions  now  and 
then  appearing  in  nature.  Instead  of  building 
a  graceful  nest,  swung  airily  amid  the  fragrant 
foliage,  it  dives  into  some  gloomy,  unsightly 
hole  in  a  rotten  stump  or  tree,  and  there,  like 
the  kingfisher  in  his  subterraneous  cavern, 
rears  its  brood.  Querulous,  saucy,  bold,  this 
beautiful  little  creature  has  endeared  itself  to 
every  observer. 

Our  indigo-bird,  bluer  than  the  last-named 
singer,  and  almost  as  common,  has  attracted 
comparatively  little  attention.  Its  song  is 
really  fine,  though  delivered  without  expres- 
sion, or  any  show  of  interest.  One  must  ap- 
proach very  close  to  get  the  full  sweetness  of 
the  frail,  faltering  strain  which  can  be  heard 
but  a  little  distance.  When  it  is  caught  in  its 
completeness,  however,  the  melody  is  so  child- 
ish and  tender  that  one  forgives  the  inartistic 
manner  of  the  delivery.  The  scientific  name 
of  this  bird  is  Passer ina  cyanea,  the  specific 
part  meaning  dark-blue,  and  it  may  be  identi- 
fied easily  by  that  color  covering  its  head  and 
shimmering  with  a  greenish  gleam  over  its 
back.  Its  nest  is  rather  sketchy,  built  with 
little  care,  and  set  in  a  low  bush,  usually  at  a 
crotch.  Its  eggs  are  bluish  white,  sometimes 
slightly  freckled. 

With  a  word  about  Wilson's  thrush  I  must 
close  this  paper.  To  my  ear  this  bird's  voice 
is  purer  and  richer  than  that  of  the  famous 
wood-thrush.  Its  shy  habits,  and  the  chary 
parsimony  with  which  it  doles  out  its  vocal 
favors,  have,  no  doubt,  tended  to  prevent  its 
becoming  popular,  even  with  good  observers. 
There  is  a  silvery  ring  in  its  higher  notes  and 
ii 


1 62          BY- WA YS  AND  BIRD-NO TES, 

a  watery  gurgle  in  its  lower  ones,  that  give  to 
its  song,  usually  heard  in  low,  heavily  wooded, 
dusky  semi-swamps,  a  peculiar  vibration  alto- 
gether indescribable.  Its  nest  is  a  curious 
mixture  of  sticks,  leaves,  grasses,  and  rootlets, 
usually  set  on  or  near  the  ground.  Its  eggs 
are  greenish  blue.  Of  all  the  thrushes  this 
appears  to  me  to  be  the  shyest  and  wildest, 
and  while  its  voice  lacks  that  flexibility  and 
compass  possessed  by  those  of  the  brown- 
thrush  and  the  cat-bird,  it  certainly  has  the 
advantage  at  the  point  of  timbre  and  of  liquid- 
ity. One  can  imagine  nothing  to  compare 
with  some  of  its  notes,  unless  it  would  be  the 
blending  of  the  tones  of  a  silver  bell  with  the 
bubbling  of  a  brook  over  pebbles.  Its  song  is 
usually  heard  at  a  considerable  distance,  in 
the  twilight  gloom  of  damp  woods,  and  there 
is  a  touching  trace  of  melancholy  in  it  that 
makes  it  blend  well  with  the  environment. 
Along  the  Wabash  river,  in  the  broad,  wooded 
"  bottoms,"  I  have  heard  it  singing  long  after 
sunset,  and  its  voice  is  the  first  sound  that 
breaks  the  silence  of  the  morning  there. 

One  who  has  loved  the  woods  and  fields  and 
has  spent  much  time  in  the  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge in  the  wild  paths  of  nature,  can  look  back 
upon  the  days  that  are  gone  and  see  so  many 
bright  visions — hear  so  many  sweet  sounds 
and  feel  so  many  thrills  through  the  nerves  of 
memory !  One  can  scarcely  be  called  senti- 
mental'if  one  gushes  a  little  over  one's  sweet 
experiences. 

The  next  best  thing  to  having  cheerful  and 
healthful  memories  is  the  liberty  of  imparting 
something  of  their  effect  to  others ;  and  I  do 
not  envy  the  man  whose  heart  does  not  some- 


SOME  MINOR  SONG-BIRDS.  163 

times  quiver  in  unison  with  the  bird-songs  of 
spring.  The  science  of  ornithology  is  very 
fascinating  and  useful,  but  the  unrecognized 
and  unnamed  science  of  bird-loving  is  to  the 
more  practical  study  what  religion  is  to  bi- 
ology— the  explanation  of  the  unexplainable. 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS. 

ONE  d*ay,  when  I  was  a  little  boy,  I  climbed 
up  the  face  of  a  rugged  cliff,  on  a  mountain- 
side in  North  Georgia,  to  get  some  richly- 
colored  lichens  growing  there.  While  I  was 
clinging  desperately  to  a  weather-soiled  pro- 
jection, I  chanced  to  see,  in  a  small  cleft  near 
my  ringers,  a  gaping  red-and-yellow  mouth.  A 
chill  like  death  swept  over  me  and  I  came 
near  falling  to  certain  destruction.  Of  course 
I  was  well  acquainted  with  all  the  snakes  of 
the  region  ;  what  mountain-lad  was  not  ? — but 
my  acquaintance  did  not  generate  any  desire 
for  familiarity  with  fangs  and  rattles,  or  dis- 
tended heads  and  forked,  darting  tongues.  A 
mere  glance,  as  my  eye  flashed  across  the 
dusky  little  crack  or  fissure,  carried  to  my 
brain  the  impression  of  a  wide-open,  repul- 
sive reptile  mouth  within  three  inches  of  my 
bare  straining  fingers!  nor  was  the  glimpse, 
though  momentary,  too  slight  to  fix  forever  in 
my  memory  a  certain  deadly,  swaying  motion 
which  always  immediately  precedes  the  stroke 
of  a  venomous  snake.  In  the  course  of  the 
merest  fraction  of  a  second  I  recollected  a 
half-dozen  instances  of  death  from  the  fang- 
wounds  of  Crotalus  or  of  Toxicophis,  and  an 
exhaustive  anticipation  of  the  throes  of  disso- 
lution I  experienced  to  the  full.  Yet  it  was 
not  a  snake,  after  all !  So  inexplicable  are  the 
tricks  of  the  human  brain,  so  strange  are  the 
sudden  flashes  of  what  one  might  almost  dare 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS.  165 

call  intuitive  knowledge,  that  it  is  not  possible 
to  say  what  value  should  be  set  upon  mere 
impressions  such  as  that  little  gaping  flesh-red 
and  yellow  mouth  left  indelibly  burned  in  my 
memory.  Science  is  plodding  on  towards  the 
solution  of  such  questions  as  I  here  raise. 
With  the  eyes  of  a  healthy,  impressible,  imag- 
inative child  I  had  seen  a  young  bird  gaping 
over  the  rim  of  its  nest,  stolidly  greedy  for  a 
worm,  and  instantly  I  had  grasped,  without 
knowing  it,  one  of  the  most  fascinating  prob- 
lems of  life. 

It  is  the  fashion  for  scientists  to  pretend  to 
ignore  the  value  of  the  imagination,  and  to 
loudly  bawl  for  facts  ;  but  all  the  knowing  ones 
wink  under  their  bonnets  and  furtively  indulge 
in  sublime  guessing  wherever  the  limitations 
of  knowledge  are  not  set  within  the  domain  of 
exactitude.  Of  course  it  would  not  become 
me  to  say  that  a  palaeozoic  fish  cannot  be  de- 
scribed accurately  with  no  data  at  hand  save 
the  fragment  of  a  doubtful  fin-spine  upon 
which  to  build  the  perfect  anatomy,  for  has 
not  this  been  done,  or  something  very  like  it  ? 
Still  a  rather  lawless  imagination  can  easily 
enjoy  the  consternation  with  which  certain 
palaeontological  pictures  might  be  viewed  by 
their  draughtsmen  if  the  original  whole  could 
suddenly  appear  in  the  place  of  the  precious 
fossil  fragment.  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
some  of  the  guesses  of  the  comparative  an- 
atomists may  be  flashes  of  truth  revealed  to 
genius — that  is  to  a  simple  and  healthy  mind.. 

It  was  years  after  my  boyish  adventure  on  the 
cliffside  that  I  recalled  with  startling  vividness 
its  strange  effect.  Meantime  I  had  been  into 
geology  and  biology  and  their  cognate  sciences. 


166          BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NOTES, 

and  had  studied  with  especial  care  and  inter- 
est the  subject  of  fossil  birds.  It  now  seemed 
to  me  that  my  child-eyes  had,  in  their  swift 
glance,  seen  far  past  that  gaping  young  bird — 
far  past  Archceopteryx  and  Odontopteryx  and 
Ichthyornis — to  the  original  ancestor  of  the  bird, 
the  ancient,  honorable  and  unknown  reptile. 
I  had  received  an  impression  of  the  archetype. 
Sit  down  in  the  woods  of  spring-time  and 
listen  to  the  brown-thrush  or  the  cat-bird  or, 
better  still,  the  mocking-bird,  singing  in  the 
fragrant  boscage,  and  you  may  be  sure  that 
you  hear  a  lyre  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
years  old.  The  earth  was  a  grand  and  beauti- 
ful ball  of  water  and  forests  and  grassy  plains, 
with  swarms  of  birds  and  insects,  and  legions 
of  wild  beasts  and  myriads  of  reptiles,  a 
long,  dreamy,  odorous  and  tuneful  age  before 
man  stood  up  in  presence  of  his  Maker  and 
was  called  good.  It  would  be  charming,  if 
one  could  but  have  the  record  of  the  ages  all 
arranged,  to  read  the  bird-songs  backward  (as 
one  may  read  backward  through  the  songs  of 
man)  to  their  first  bubblings  in  the  oldest 
groves.  Where  was  the  first  blue-bird  song 
uttered  ?  Where  did  the  cerulean  wings  first 
tremble  among  the  young  leaves  of  spring  ? 
It  is  said  that  science  and  poetry  are  not 
friends,  that  they  refuse  to  walk  arm  in  arm, 
that  they  scorn  each  other ;  yet  to  my  mind 
science  seems  to  dig  up  the  freshest  germs  of 
poesy,  and  to  set  free  the  eternal  essences  of 
that  creative  force  which  electrifies  and  puts 
in  motion  the  dormant  functions  of  genius. 
Facts  are  dry  enough  and  the  jargon  of  the 
doctors  is  not  suited  to  enrich  the  poet's  vo- 
cabulary, but  between  the  facts  hovers  the 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS.  167 

rare,  pungent,  strangely  powerful  suggestive- 
ness  of  that  which  fills  the  atmosphere  sur- 
rounding facts.  The  chief  fallacy  of  the  scien- 
tific attitude  is  that  which  leans  with  confi- 
dence on  the  prosy  for  the  sake  of  its  prose, 
at  the  same  time  shrinking  from  the  poetical 
on  account  of  its  poetry.  The  geologist  feels 
in  some  way  honor-bound  to  avoid  coming  to 
a  picturesque  conclusion  with  his  catalogue  of 
facts.  The  catalogue  must  remain  a  catalogue. 
A  sense  of  shame  would  accompany  any 
thought  of  connecting  imagination  with  his 
theory  of  the  record  of  the  rocks. 

But,  despite  the  geologists,  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  picturesqueness  and  poetry  in  the  dis- 
closures of  the  fossil  beds.  Set  in  matrices  of 
carbonate  of  lime,  magnesia,  silica,  and  the 
oxides  of  iron,  one  may  find  the  compressed 
and  fragmentary  remains  of  a  life  that  flour- 
ished before  our  hills  and  mountains  were 
made.  This  is  a  statement  as  trite,  dry,  and 
lifeless  as  the  fossils  themselves.  But  when 
one  comes  upon  a  mass  of  feathers  disposed 
about  a  strange  bird-skeleton  imbedded  in  rock 
many  thousands  of  years  old,  one  may  as  well 
think  of  what  song  Archaopteryx  sang  as  of 
what  food  it  ate,  or  of  how  it  used  its  long  ver- 
tebrate tail.  What  colors  had  its  wings  and 
breast  and  crest  ?  Were  the  rectrices  that 
flared  out  on  each  side  of  the  twenty  vertebrae 
of  that  strange  tail  dyed  with  rainbow  hues  ? 
These  are  the  questions  with  which  the  scien- 
tist is  ashamed  to  play ;  but  the  poet  may  ask 
them  of  the  rocks,  and  work  out  the  answers, 
by  the  rules  of  the  imagination,  to  his  fullest 
satisfaction. 

In  accordance  with  some  unchangeable  law 


1 68          BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

of  the  scientific  guild,  all  the  beauty  of  our  age 
must  needs  be  traced  back  to  an  almost  de- 
moniac source  in  the  palaeozoic  gardens  of 
monsters,  where  birds  had  awful  teeth,  and 
where  hideous  saurian-like  beings  had  wings 
with  which  to  flap  wildly  through  the  poison- 
ous air.  Unfortunately  enough  the  rocks 
grimly  stand  up,  and  testify  for  the  theory  of 
the  scientists  with  a  persistence  and  a  lack  of 
poetical  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  truly  ex- 
asperating. That  there  were,  in  those  days 
when  nature  was  over  lusty  and  young,  birds, 
fishes  and  reptiles  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made,  cannot  be  for  a  moment  doubted.  It 
would  look,  to  one  not  thoroughly  learned  in 
the  records  of  the  palaeozoic  ages,  as  if  the 
creative  power  had  been  feeling  its  way,  hesi- 
tating here,  faltering  there,  gathering  confi- 
dence from  experience,  and  slowly  finding  out 
the  precious  secrets  of  life-development. 

Here  and  there,  at  wide  intervals,  as  regards 
both  space  and  time,  the  rocks  give  up  bird- 
notes,  so  to.  speak.  The  poet  may,  by  holding 
his  ear  close  to  the  strange,  blurred  impres- 
sions in  the  stones,  hear  the  cries,  the  hoarse 
screams,  the  clanging  trumpet-blasts  of  the 
huge  land-birds  and  water-fowl  that  haunted 
the  woods  and  streams  and  seas  in  that  time 
when  nearly  the  whole  earth  was  a  tropical  re- 
gion. He  may  hear  the  twitter  of  sparrows, 
too,  and  the  careless  laugh  of  the  kingfisher. 

The  slab  containing  the  remains  of  Archcz- 
opteryx  is  in  the  British  Museum.  It  is  an  ob- 
long piece  of  lithographic  slate.  The  shreds 
of  the  bird  lie  thereon  in  such  confusion  as 
would  mark  the  spot  where  an  owl  or  a  gos- 
hawk had  eaten  a  blue-jay.  The  bones  of  the 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS.  169 

head  and  of  the  sternum  are  not  all  present, 
but  the  fragmentary  wings  lie  in  place,  and  one 
leg  with  the  foot  attached  is  crooked  back  be- 
side the  long  twenty-jointed  tail.  The  feath- 
ers are  unmistakably  those  of  a  flying  bird, 
and  the  feet  are  formed  for  tree  life.  It  must 
have  been  a  most  remarkable  figure  in  the  air, 
especially  if  its  plumage  was  gay-colored,  with 
its  long,  wriggling  caudal  streamer  floating 
out  behind,  and  its  claw-tipped  wings  spread 
on  either  side  of  its  reptile-like  body.  One 
may  assume  that  its  voice  was  a  blending  of 
the  tones  of  a  toad  and  the  notes  of  a  crow — 
the  first  rude  elements  of  song.  Almost  un- 
imaginable ages  have  passed  since  the  last  sur- 
viving Archtzopteryx  was  caught  in  a  rock  ma- 
trix and  forced  to  mould  a  cast  for  the  delecta- 
tion of  poets  and  scientists.  Indeed  we  must 
refrain  from  attempting  to  span  the  gulf  of 
time  between  this  lone  relic  and  the  next  bird- 
trace  appearing  in  the  earth's  formations.  No 
more  feathered  vertebrate  tails  come  to  light. 
Lapsing  on  towards  the  perfect  form,  the  bird- 
life,  like  that  of  certain  reptiles,  sloughed  the 
heavy  caudal  appendage  and  gathered  closer 
together  the  chief  centres  of  its  animal  struct- 
ure. From  the  cretaceous  formation  of  the 
rocks,  forward  to  the  most  recent  disclosures 
of  the  caves  and  peat  bogs,  this  change  seems 
to  have  gone  hand  in  hand  with  a  general  re- 
modelling of  the  whole  sphere  of  mundane  life. 
For  a  vast  period  of  time  it  appears  that  the 
birds  flourished,  in  monstrous  development  of 
beak  and  teeth,  the  devouring  demons  of  land 
and  sea.  The  eocene  rocks  furnish  a  wealth 
of  fragmentary  fossils  suggesting  a  variety  of 
bird- forms,  mostly  of  giant  size,  waders  and 


170          B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

swimmers  as  well  as  flyers,  some  of  them  with 
jaws  full  of  powerful  teeth.  It  is  in  this  period 
that  nature  has  made  indelible  sketches  on  the 
rocks,  lithographic  studies  of  her  great  future 
work,  so  to  speak ;  work  that  man  is  now  so 
recklessly  destroying  forever.  In  England 
the  eocene  has  furnished  a  hint  of  the  king- 
fishers and  the  heron  family.  In  France  most 
interesting  discoveries  have  been  made  in  the 
Paris  basin,  and  in  formations  of  the  same 
horizon.  Fossil  feathers,  fragmentary  skele- 
tons, and  even  eggs,  have  been  found,  the  last 
mentioned  in  the  marl  deposits  near  Aix  in 
Provence.  From  lacustral  beds  in  Auvergne 
and  Bourbonnais  a  great  number  of  birds  have 
come  to  light,  nearly  fifty  distinct  species  hav- 
ing been  described.  The  marl  of  Ronzon  has 
given  up  an  ancient  plover,  a  gull,  and  a  fla- 
mingo, very  different  from  presently  existing 
species. 

Coming  to  our  own  country  we  step  at  once 
amongst  the  choicest  records  of  the  rocks. 
Beginning  with  the  Jurassic  formation,  we  find 
in  the  upper  beds  of  the  period  in  Wyoming 
the  remains  of  a  bird  somewhat  larger  than 
our  well-known  great  blue  heron  (Ardea  hera- 
dias).  It  was  probably  a  toothed  bird,  but  re- 
sembled the  Ratita  in  other  respects,  and  was, 
perhaps,  not  a  flyer. 

The  cretaceous  birds  of  America  all  appear 
to  be  aquatic,  and  comprise  some  eight  or  a 
dozen  genera,  and  many  species.  Professor 
Marsh  and  others  have  found  in  Kansas  a 
large  number  of  most  interesting  fossil  birds, 
one  of  them,  a  gigantic  loon-like  creature,  six 
feet  in  length  from  beak  to  toe,  taken  from  the 
yellow  chalk  of  the  Smoky-Hill  river  region 


BIRDS  OF  THE  'ROCKS.  171 

and  from  calcareous  shale  near  Fort  Wallace, 
is  named  Hesperornis  regalis.  Under  the  gen- 
eric name  Hesperornis  have  been  grouped  a 
number  of  species  represented  by  skeletons 
more  or  less  lacking  completeness,  but  nearly 
enough  perfect  to  show  their  affinities.  A 
genus  Ichthyornis  of  most  remarkable  toothed 
birds  has  been  found  in  the  middle  cretaceous 
rocks  of  Northwestern  Kansas,  and  a  number 
of  interesting  remains  have  been  taken  from 
the  green  sand  and  marl  beds  in  New  Jersey. 
It  would  not  serve  any  purpose  to  catalogue 
here  all  the  known  fossil  birds.  I  have  hastily 
sketched  a  broken  outline  by  way  of  preface, 
leading  up  to  what  geologists  call  the  tertiary 
rocks.  Here  we  find  the  true  ancestry  of  our 
present  birds — the  rocks  begin  to  sing  and 
twitter  and  chirp.  Now  we  hear  a  far-away 
chorus,  the  morning  voices  from  the  old,  old 
woods.  A  very  breath  of  flowers  and  foliage 
is  suggested. 

In  the  Museum  of  the  Boston  Society  of 
Natural  History  is  preserved  a  beautiful  speci- 
men from  the  insect-bearing-shale  of  Colorado, 
containing  a  nearly  complete  skeleton  (with 
feather  impressions  of  wings  and  tail)  of  a 
bird  belonging  to  the  "  oscine  division  of  the 
Passeres"  a  division  which  contains  all  the 
singing  birds  now  existing.  This  discovery  of 
an  oscine  bird  in  the  fossil  form,  dating  far 
back  of  the  age  of  man,  leads  the  poet,  not  the 
scientist,  to  ask  whether  it  may  not  be  possi- 
ble, and  even  probable,  that  some  of  the  more 
ancient  fossil  birds  had  that  peculiar  structure 
of  the  lower  larynx,  or  syrinx,  necessary  to  the 
songster.  The  oscines  are  not  toothed  birds, 
and  teeth  have  been  considered  an  index  of  a 


172          B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

low  order  of  birds  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
perfectly  formed  wings  and  a  well-keeled  ster- 
num are  the  salients  of  the  highest  bird-develop- 
ment, and  Ichthyornis  had  these,  despite  its 
teeth  and  fishy  vertebrae.  I  venture  to  suspect 
that  if  a  fairly  preserved  fossil  skeleton,  includ- 
ing the  bill,  of  a  poll  parrot  could  be  found  in 
any  of  the  mesozoic  formations,  no  scientist 
would  be  able,  without  any  knowledge  of  the 
parrot  family  save  what  the  fossil  afforded,  to 
discover  the  bird's  curious  vocal  gifts. 

The  perching  feet  of  Archaopteryx  would 
give  it  a  leading  characteristic  of  the  passeres, 
and  it  may  have  had  the  syrinx  of  the  oscines, 
despite  its  vertebrate,  lizard-like  tail  ;  and  so, 
too,  Ichthyornis,  notwithstanding  its  reptile 
jaws  and  teeth  and  its  bi-concave  vertebra, 
may  have  been  able  to  sing  divinely.  It  was 
a  small  bird,  scarcely  larger  than  a  pigeon, 
with  a  skeleton  closely  similar  to  those  of  the 
highest  ornithological  types,  saving  the  teeth  and 
bi-concave  vertebra ;  and  who  shall  dispute  that 
such  a  creature  might  have  made  the  woods 
ring  with  its  voice.  True,  it  has  been  thought 
an  aquatic  bird,  simply  because  the  formation 
in  which  its  remains  rested  is  of  marine  ori- 
gin, and  on  account  of  its  teeth.  There  have 
been  great  changes,  great  progress  and  great 
retrogression,  since  the  middle  cretaceous  pe- 
riod ;  but  my  suggestion  is  complete  without 
knowing  or  caring  about  the  voice  of  Ichthy- 
ornis. I  have  traced  bird-song  back  into  the 
mesozoic  age,  and  have  set  the  music  of  the 
rocks  to  ringing  in  the  ears  of  my  imaginative 
readers.  If,  as  embryology  appears  to  teach, 
the  birds  have  come  through  the  fish  and  rep- 
tile forms  to  their  present  beautiful  state,  by 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS.  173 

some  processes  of  progressive  evolution,  the 
fact  does  not  conflict  with  my  dream.  It 
would  seem  that  nature  has  often  turned  back 
from  a  partly  accomplished  purpose,  as  if  upon 
discovering  a  shorter  and  better  way,  and  it 
may  be  that  the  voices  of  nightingale  and 
mocking-bird  have  not  yet  reached  the  perfec- 
tion belonging  to  some  singer  of  aeons  ago.  The 
syrinx  of  Arck&opUryx  may  have  been  perfect, 
and  yet  the  bird  itself,  with  its  cumbersome 
vertebrate  appendage,  may  have  been  cast 
aside  in  order  to  begin  another  line  of  experi- 
ment, so  to  speak,  in  the  direction  of  physical 
harmony.  In  such  case  the  process  would 
probably  begin  from  the  first  again.  It  may 
appear  that  this  really  did  take  place  ;  for  note 
that,  after  a  vast  geological  space  of  time  fol- 
lowing the  extermination  of  the  highly  organ- 
ized Arck&opteryX)  we  see  the  lower  orders 
caught  in  the  grip  of  the  rocks,  as  if  nature 
were  again  toiling  up,  but  by  a  different  route, 
to  reach  the  level  of  the  oscines,  which  appears 
to  have  been  accomplished  when  the  Palceo- 
spiza  bella  came  forth  in  the  tertiary  age.  This 
species,  buried  in  the  shale  amidst  the  insects 
upon  which  it  used  to  feed,  may  be  taken  as  a 
type  of  the  fossil  song-bird  and  should  have 
been  named  simply  Melospiza,  as  the  first  of 
that  genus  and  of  the  family  Fringillidce,  just 
as  we  say,  Adam  or  Eve  ! 

When  we  come  to  think  of  it,  it  is  next  to 
miraculous  that  any  traces  of  the  palaeozoic 
birds  are  left  to  us  at  all.  Can  we  well,  con- 
ceive how  a  sparrow  or  a  blue-jay  of  our  time 
shall  be  imprisoned  in  earth  so  as  to  be  quar- 
ried out  of  a  stone-bed  some  millions  of  years 
hence  ?  Let  us  pause  and  reflect  a  moment 


174          BY- W 'AYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES, 

and  we  shall  begin  to  wonder  how  so  many  re- 
mains of  so-called  aquatic  birds  found  their 
way  into  the  middle  cretaceous  beds  of  Kansas 
and  Texas.  Surely  there  must  have  been 
myriads  of  birds  in  those  days,  else  nature  had 
a  better  way  then  than  now  of  taking  her 
dead  into  her  bosom  ? 

The  lower  tertiary  rocks  of  Wyoming  Terri- 
tory have  given  up  an  ancient  woodpecker, 
Uintornis  lucaris,  a  small  species,  not  larger 
than  our  flicker.  He  it  was  who  drummed  on 
the  dead  trees  in  the  lonely  places  of  the  woods 
ages  before  the  first  germ  that  foreshadowed 
man  was  forming  under  the  smile  of  God. 

Many  of  the  ancient  aquatic  birds  may  have 
built  their  nests  in  burrows,  as  our  kingfishers 
do,  and  various  accidents  may  have  shut  them 
up  forever  in  their  dens.  It  can  be  under- 
stood how  the  belted  halcyon  of  to-day  might 
be  hermetically  sealed  in  his  burrow  by  the 
earth  falling  in  upon  him.  Still  I  have  heard 
of  but  a  single  bone-fragment  (amongst  all  the 
fossil  remains  of  birds)  that  has  been  referred 
to  the  kingfisher,  which  argues  that  Halcyon 
is  a  new  bird  in  comparison  with  others  exist- 
ing at  this  time,  or  else  we  have  not  yet 
chanced  to  cut  into  the  banks  of  the  old,  old 
brooks  where  he  used  to  dig  out  the  burrow 
for  his  nest. 

What  have  been  called  sub-fossil  remains 
furnish  us  a  number  of  giant  birds  from  the 
sands  of  Madagascar  and  from  New  Zealand. 
So  also  the  peat-bogs  and  fens  hold  the  bones 
of  rare  or  extinct  species,  principally  herons 
and  bitterns. 

Since  we  have  been  forced  to  study  orni- 
thology backwards,  we  may  be  said  to  have 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS.  175 

just  now  reached  the  hither  confine  of  the 
ancient  domain  of  the  birds.  A  mere  outcrop 
here,  a  quarry  there,  with  now  and  then  a  rail- 
way-cutting or  a  mining-drift  or  shaft,  can 
afford  no  more  than  casual  glimpses  of  what  is 
pictured  in  the  rocks.  With  Palaospiza  as 
the  initial,  or  rather  the  closing  sketch,  what  if 
we  could  thumb  the  pages  back  through  all 
the  forms  to  Archtzopteryx  and  beyond,  should 
we  not  have  a  volume  of  almost  weirdly  unique 
impressions  !  I  have  imagined  that  we  should, 
in  fact,  find '  a  long  series  of  editions  of  the 
same  volume,  amended,  remodelled,  revised, 
but  ever  showing  the  same  great  development 
purpose.  The  owl  was  before  Minerva,  music 
was  before  Pan,  beauty  was  before  Venus, 
love  was  before  the  woman  was  made  for 
Adam  ;  the  spirit  of  God  walked  in  the  dawn. 
The  labors  of  A.  Milne-Edwards  have,  to 
my  mind,  opened  mines  of  rich  suggestion  to 
the  poet  as  well  as  the  philosopher  and  scien- 
tist, and  I  am  sure  that  there  is  as  much  stim- 
ulus for  the  imagination  as  there  is  food  for 
the  mere  reason  in  the  discoveries  of  Prof. 
Marsh.  And  yet  I  cannot  join  the  group  who 
regard  science  as  the  basis  of  future  poetry. 
It  is  not  science,  but  the  atmosphere  of  sug- 
gestion that  stirs  the  pages  of  science,  that  is 
generative  of  poetry.  If  genius  cannot  see 
past  the  hard,  dry  fossils  of  to-day,  far  back 
into  the  living  by-gone  and  catch  those  tints 
that  are  faded  forever  from  sea  and  land,  then 
genius  fails  at  the  cheapest  test.  It  is  a  func- 
tion of  science  to  restore  the  lost  head  and 
breast  bones  to  Archceopteryx,  but  it  is  the 
privilege  of  the  poet  to  restore  the  colors  to  its 
feathers  and  to  "  flood  its  throat  with  song." 


1 76          BY-WAYS  AND  BIRD-NO TES. 

I  have  an  exalted  admiration  of  science,  and 
place  sincere  trust  in  the  outcome  of  its  inves- 
tigations ;  but  I  also  sympathize  most  cordially 
with  him  who  wishes  he  could  have  angled  for 
Devonian  fishes,  or  who  sighs  at  the  thought 
of  the  bird-songs  of  the  earth's  morning 
twilight. 

But  to  return  to  our  text.  The  curious  sug- 
gestiveness  of  these  fossil  fragments  of  birds 
is  not  common  to  all  the  organic  remains  in 
the  rocks.  The  cast  of  a  delicate  wing-feather 
in  the  shale  of  the  hills,  is  a  fertilizer  of  the 
mind  and  a  generator  of  strange  visions. 
How  far  that  little  quill  has  been  borne  down 
the  current  of  time  !  Where  was  the  nest  with 
its  soft  lining  and  its  wonder  of  green  or  blue 
or  marbled  eggs?  Did  the  fragrant  leaves 
droop  over  and  the  May- wind  breathe  around  ? 
Was  there  a  brook  hard  by  with  its  painted 
pebbles  and  its  liquid  music  ?  Why  was  there 
no  sun-burnt  boy — no  bare-foot  girl — no  cabin 
on  the  hill?  I  know  a  sportsman  or  two 
whom  it  would  delight  to  shoot  over  a  middle 
cretaceous  marsh  or  shore-meadow  where  a 
good  bag  of  Apatornis  and  Ichthyornis  might 
be  had !  What  a  picnic  it  would  be  if  one 
could  prepare  an  ample  luncheon  and  invite 
professors  Gray,  Coulter,  Lesquereux,  and 
many  others  to  meet  one  in  a  jungle  of  the 
great  Western  Coal  Basin  before  it  was  sub- 
merged !  What  botanizing  there  would  be  ! 
As  for  me,  I  should  like  to  tramp  with  Dr. 
Elliott  Coues  in  the  haunts  of  Arctuzopteryx  f 
Let  him  collect  skins  while  I  make  sketches  ; 
let  him  dissect  fresh  subjects  while  I  listen  to 
the  voices  of  the  strange  wilderness.  I  should 
like  to  see  the  pollen  of  earth's  first  flowers 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS.  177 

upon  my  shoes,  and  hear  the  runic  notes  that 
have  ripened  into  the  song  of  the  mocking- 
bird and  the  brown-thrush. 

Below  the  surface  of  Professor  Huxley's 
comparisons  of  the  Birds  and  the  Reptiles 
there  is  a  strong  current  of  most  fascinating 
poetry  flowing  back  over  the  fossil-bearing 
rocks.  I  take  it  that  the  first  men  were  much 
nearer  to  Nature  than  we  are.  It  may  be  that 
an  hereditary  far-fetched  memory  (so  to  speak) 
of  winged  monsters,  suggested  the  dragons 
and  griffins  of  early  song.  The  crude  but  per- 
fectly natural  imaginings  of  the  savages  of  to- 
day, as  well  as  the  refined  fantasies  of  the  an- 
cients, seem  to  smack  of  "this  lingering  hered- 
itament transmitted  through  a  thousand 
changes  from  the  lower  estate.  Pan,  the  goat- 
footed  musician,  is  scarcely  less  monstrous, 
when  we  view  him  soberly,  than  many  of  the 
beings  shut  up  in  the  stones. 

Mr.  Seeley  has  described  a  most  interesting 
bird  of  the  eocene  period,  named  Odontopteryx 
toliapicus,  probably  a  fish-eater,  having  nearly 
the  habits  of  a  cormorant,  whose  mouth  was 
rimmed  with  bony  teeth  set  in  the  powerful 
jaws.  An  expression  of  savage  fierceness  and 
voracity  has  clung  to  this  bird's  head-bones 
through  countless  ages  of  change.  Not  even 
the  relentless  grip  of  the  rocks  for  a  million 
of  years  could  entirely  quench  the  demoniac 
spirit  of  the  creature.  In  what  sea  or  lake  or 
stream  did  it  strike  its  prey  ?  On  what  windy 
ocean  crag  did  it  rear  its  clamorous  brood  ? 
I  should  like  to  have  a  look  at  its  nest,  if  only 
to  compare  it  with  those  of  the  fish-eaters  of 
to-day,  but  much  better  should  I  enjoy  a  sail  on 
the  waters  it  haunted,  with  the  wind  on  my 


1 78          B  Y-  WA  YS  AND  BIRD-NO  TES. 

cheek  and  the  sharp  fragrance  of  the  salt 
marshes  in  my  nostrils. 

Some  say  that  the  poetry  of  the  future  will 
be  the  songs  of  science,  that  we  are  now  in 
the  state  of  transition  from  romance  to  the 
real.  So  be  it  if  it  must ;  but  after  all  I  should 
rather  sing  with  my  face  to  the  front,  if  I  were 
a  poet.  Science  is  noble  and  good,  but  the 
progress  of  the  soul  is  better.  Genius  is  a 
bird  of  morning,  and  its  song  is  always  the  ex- 
ponent of  the  most  recent  pulse  of  human  pas- 
sion, human  knowledge  of  beauty,  human 
sympathy  with  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
world.  The  rocks  may  give  up  the  last  secret 
of  their  hearts  ;  the  sea,  too,  may  disgorge  its 
treasures ;  but  at  last  it  is  the  soul  of  man  that 
is  the  poet's  field  of  study — the  soul  that 
walked  with  God  upon  chaos  in  the  dark  hour 
before  the  dawn  of  creation,  the  soul  that  still 
walks  with  him  as  the  morning  twilight  slowly 
broadens  into  perfect  day.  It  is  this  soul  that 
longs  backward  and  longs  forward  for  the  un- 
known, haunted  all  the  time  with  some  dreamy 
memory  of  its  ancient  chrysalis  state,  and  feel- 
ing all  the  time  how  close  it  is  approaching  to 
the  hour  when  its  wings  shall  be  full-grown. 

Much  has  been  spoken  and  written  to  dem- 
onstrate that  the  revelation  of  the  rocks  is  or  is 
not  in  conflict  with  the  revelations  of  the  Bible. 
To  me  the  whole  discussion  has  the  ring  of 
blasphemy.  Let  science  go  on  enlightening 
our  minds  and  let  Christianity  go  on  making 
glorious  the  paths  of  men.  There  is  room 
and  great  need  for  both.  Walking  between 
the  two,  with  a  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  either, 
let  poesy  gather  the  bird-songs  and  perfumes 


BIRDS  OF  THE  ROCKS.  179 

of  all  the  woods  and  fields  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  time. 

It  is  because  colors  have  such  priceless  value 
in  the  composition  of  the  beauty  our  souls 
crave,  and  because  music,  such  as  the  birds, 
make  in  the  dewy  woods  of  May,  goes  so  far 
towards  filling  the  human  heart  with  happi- 
ness, that  I  close  this  paper  with  the  questions  : 

What  colors  had  the  plumage  of  Archceo- 
pteryx  ? 

What  song  did  Palczospiza  sing  ? 


THE   END. 


14  DAY  USE 

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LD  21A-50m-ll,'62 
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